{"id":477808,"date":"2026-02-19T12:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477808\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:22:07","slug":"yankees-young-gun-wowing-mows-down-aaron-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/477808\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees\u2019 young gun wowing, mows down Aaron Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to miss Yankees<\/a> pitching prospect Ben Hess<\/a> when he\u2019s sitting at his locker stall at Steinbrenner Field.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s 6-foot-5, 255 pounds and dresses in one of the front-and-center rollaways added for spring training to accommodate 70-player rosters.<\/p>\n

The right-hander is a presence on the mound, too.<\/p>\n

In his first big-league camp, the 2024 first-round draft pick out of Alabama threw three innings of live BP to some of the Yankees\u2019 big boys on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

From start to finish, Hess mostly impressed mixing high 90s fastballs with curves and sweepers.<\/p>\n

Cody Bellinger gave Hess a scare scorching a liner right back at him, but he got the better of Aaron Judge, who whiffed chasing a nasty breaking ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Hess was really good, especially with his secondary stuff,\u201d Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cHe\u2019s got that full-starters\u2019 arsenal. He has a good fastball.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially today, I thought with the curveball and sweeper he did a really good job with the command and the ability to get back in counts with it. That was good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hess had an excellent first pro season in 2025 while being challenged. He started out going 4-3 with a 3.51 ERA in 15 starts with High-A Hudson Valley, then jumped to Double-A Somerset and put up better numbers, 3-1 with a 2.70 ERA in seven outings.<\/p>\n

In 103.1 combined innings, Hess piled up 139 strikeouts and walked 46.<\/p>\n

The Moline, Ill., native probably will get to Triple-A this season, maybe from the outset.<\/p>\n

MLB Pipeline ranks Hess as the Yankees\u2019 No. 6 prospect.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a portion of its scouting report:<\/p>\n

Hess can overpower hitters<\/a> with a four-seam fastball that parks at 92-96 mph and peaks at 99 with armside run, and the flat approach angle and extension in his delivery make it more difficult to barrel.<\/p>\n

While his curveball sits in the mid-70s, it gives him a second plus pitch with its ability to fool hitters thanks to its depth and sweep coming out of a low arm slot. <\/p>\n

His mid-80s slider can feature two-plane depth at times but lost some sharpness last year, and he no longer trusts a fading mid-80s changeup that once looked like a potential solid offering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to miss Yankees pitching prospect Ben Hess when he\u2019s sitting at his locker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-477808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}