{"id":145224,"date":"2026-02-25T20:36:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145224\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:36:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:36:32","slug":"aaron-judge-hints-yankees-have-next-bronx-ace-waiting-to-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/145224\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Judge Hints Yankees Have Next Bronx Ace Waiting to Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Yankees fans have already had lots of pitchers in recent years on the major league roster to get excited about, but there’s something special about the hype behind a top-tier prospect.<\/p>\n

Carlos Lagrange, the 22-year-old Dominican-born fireballer who ranks No. 2<\/a> on MLB Pipeline’s list of top Yankees prospects, has been going viral this spring. On Feb. 16, the first day of live at-bats at Yankees camp, Lagrange blew a 102.6 mph fastball by three-time American League Most Valuable Player Aaron Judge for a swinging strikeout.<\/p>\n

That moment stuck with Judge, even though he’d already launched a home run off Lagrange earlier in the session. And earlier this week, the best hitter in baseball made a bold declaration about the potential for his club’s hardest-throwing pitching prospect. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cCarlos\u2019 potential, man, is to be a front-line starter for the New York Yankees,\u201d Judge said, per Chris Kirschner<\/a> of The Athletic.<\/p>\n

Lagrange pitched to a 3.53 ERA across High-A and Double-A last season, but his 168 strikeouts in 120 innings were the true indication of how high his ceiling was. Judge and the Yankees’ major leaguers may have taken notice at the time, but seeing him in person in spring training has to jump-start their expectations.<\/p>\n

Judge also weighed in on how Lagrange managed the pressure of going up against some of the Yankees’ best major league hitters, saying that was just more evidence the youngster could handle the bright lights in the Bronx someday soon. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe sent up some nasty lineups against him,\u201d Judge said, per Kirschner. \u201cHe didn\u2019t care. He wanted to be out there, and he came right after us. That\u2019s what you need if you\u2019re gonna play in the Bronx. If you\u2019re gonna play in New York, you gotta have that demeanor.\u201d <\/p>\n

New York’s rotation is deep as of Wednesday, and it will only get deeper when All-Stars Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rod\u00f3n return from the injured list. But when you hear what Judge thinks of Lagrange, it’s easy to envision the young flamethrower getting his shot at the big leagues in the near future.<\/p>\n

More MLB: Yankees Lose 29-Year-Old Free Agent to Tigers: Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Yankees fans have already had lots of pitchers in recent years on the major league roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,20,9,24,321,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-145224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-the-bronx","15":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","16":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}