NEW YORK — The Yankees have spent this summer leaning on the farm system to keep a wobbling season upright, and two very different pitchers have forced their way into the conversation over the past week.
One is a converted catcher throwing 100 mph at Single-A Tampa. The other is a 16th-round draft pick who cannot break 93 on the radar gun but keeps making hitters miss at Double-A Somerset. They sit two levels apart in the Yankees system. Both are climbing at the same time.
Antonio Gomez and Xavier Rivas took different roads to this point. What links them now is timing. The Yankees sit 66-52, second in the AL East and six games behind the Tampa Bay Rays, and the front office has already turned to prospects like Elmer Rodriguez and George Lombard Jr. to steady a roster hit by injuries and underperformance. Fresh arms matter more than usual.
That backdrop is what makes the past several days in the minors worth watching. The Yankees are not just developing these two. They are tracking them closely.
A catcher who now touches triple digits
Gomez made his 2026 debut on Aug. 8, and it did not look like the work of a former catcher. Pitching in relief for Single-A Tampa in a 4-2 win over Clearwater at BayCare Ballpark, the right-hander threw one scoreless inning on 15 pitches, 11 for strikes. He averaged 99.9 mph on his four-seam fastball and reached or passed 100 mph five times, according to MLB.com.
The numbers are startling for a player who was catching in games as recently as last year. Gomez signed with the Yankees out of Venezuela as an international free agent in July 2018 for $600,000. He once ranked as high as No. 19 on the Yankees Top 30 prospect list. But the bat never followed. He slashed .140/.225/.168 across 35 games at Double-A before the organization moved him off the position.
The switch began in June 2025, when the Yankees placed Gomez on the Developmental List at Double-A Somerset to start a throwing program. He re-signed with the club last November and was assigned to Single-A Tampa in March, where he is now rebuilding as a pitcher. A 70-grade arm, the tool scouts always liked, is now the whole point.
His debut inning showed both the ceiling and the rawness. Gomez struck out two of the four batters he faced and generated four swings and misses, one on an 88.6 mph cutter. He also allowed a line-drive single and did not complete a clean immaculate-inning bid he had flirted with. He entered the season on the 60-day injured list, so the runway is short, but the velocity is real.
A soft-tosser who keeps winning the strike zone
Rivas is the opposite profile, a level higher, and arguably the more advanced story. The 6-foot-4 left-hander does not overpower anyone. His fastball sits 90 to 92 mph, with a changeup and slider in the low 80s. Yet he has spent the summer at Double-A as one of the most productive pitchers in the minor leagues.
Over his last 10 appearances at Somerset, Rivas carried a 1.45 ERA, a 34.9 percent strikeout rate and a 15.7 percent swinging-strike rate, per data shared by Ryan Garcia of Empire Sports Media. On the full season he is 6-4 with a 3.65 ERA across 19 outings, 15 of them starts, with 114 strikeouts in 81 1/3 innings. Opponents are hitting .176 against him.
His most recent start, on Aug. 6 at Akron, fit the pattern. Rivas went six innings against the RubberDucks, allowing four hits, two earned runs and three walks while striking out six in a 3-2 Somerset win. It was his 10th consecutive outing surrendering two runs or fewer, a stretch that has pushed him near the top of full-season minor league leaderboards in ERA and batting average against.
The Yankees drafted Rivas in the 16th round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of Mississippi, where he missed his final college season after Tommy John surgery. He is currently the No. 21-ranked prospect in the Yankees system, per MLB Pipeline. Most evaluators see his stuff fitting better in a bullpen than a rotation at the highest level, but the command and the results have outrun the scouting grades all year.
Why the timing matters for the Yankees
Neither pitcher is likely to help the Yankees in the current AL East and postseason race. Gomez is still at Single-A, rebuilding an entire skill set on the mound. Rivas has yet to reach Triple-A. This is a 2027 story at the earliest, and possibly a spring training story before that.
Still, depth is the theme of the Yankees season. The pitching staff has already absorbed contributions from unexpected names, and general manager Brian Cashman has never turned down usable arms. A strong finish could push Rivas to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and into the mix for a Spring Training invite at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla. Gomez, if the velocity holds, becomes a name to track through the offseason.
For a Yankees club fighting to hold a wild-card spot while developing the next wave, two prospects pulling in opposite directions, one on pure power, one on pure precision, is exactly the kind of depth a contender wants to build. The bullpen and the roster of the future may run through the farm system, from Tampa up to Somerset.
Both remain weeks or months from the Bronx, and levels apart from each other. But for the first time this season, the Yankees have two very different prospects surging on the mound at once.
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