MESA, Ariz. — Carlos Lagrange received the news Thursday that he was being reassigned to Yankees minor league camp, but there was still a reward to come for a standout camp.
The club’s top pitching prospect boarded the cross-country charter with the team from Tampa on Sunday for a chance to make one more start against the Cubs on Monday afternoon. It was a small taste of big league life, giving the 22-year-old right-hander a glimpse of what is to come if and when he gets the call to the majors later this season.
“It leaves you wanting more,” Lagrange said through an interpreter. “It gives you hunger to keep on working harder to get to it.”
That reward, though, also came with some reality that was still the case even as he dominated lineups in the Grapefruit League earlier this spring: He is not yet a finished product. Facing the toughest lineup he has seen all spring — essentially the Opening Day Cubs lineup — Lagrange came back to earth for a day. His strike throwing was not as sharp as it was earlier in camp and it led to him getting tagged for eight runs on nine hits across 2 ²/₃ innings, raising his spring ERA from 0.66 to 4.96.
New York Yankees pitcher Carlos Lagrange #84, throwing a warmup pitch before the start of the 2nd inning. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
“It was tough, but it was pretty good, because I threw versus big league hitters,” Lagrange said. “There’s a big difference between big league hitters and minor league hitters. … It jumps out that they know how to look for a pitch and be ready to attack in different counts. Falling [behind] doesn’t help when you’re facing those guys.”
Of course, the results this time of year still do not matter, and the rough ending should not tarnish what was otherwise a terrific spring for Lagrange, showing the Yankees he may be closer to the big leagues than they thought entering camp, despite never having pitched above Double-A.
That will change later this week, as Lagrange is set to open the season at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, another test for him as he races toward the big leagues.
“I think it’s all been valuable [this spring],” manager Aaron Boone said. “But more than anything, he’s kept his head down as far as continuing to get better. That’s the biggest thing, just seeing what he did last year, feel like he’s grown over the winter and into spring training here. Real excited about where he’s at.”
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After giving up a run in the first inning on a bloop single, Lagrange responded by striking out the side in the second — on a changeup to Dansby Swanson and on sliders to Matt Shaw and Dylan Carlson, generating some silly-looking swings. It reinforced that Lagrange has more than just a triple-digit fastball, as the secondary stuff is what may allow him to remain a starter long term.
“The off-speed’s what makes him special,” Boone said. “His fastball’s great. It’s 100, 102. But his secondaries are what make him potentially so good. What’s been exciting is just his consistency in this six weeks that we’ve seen of the strike throwing. So if he continues that, he’ll be impacting us before long.”
The Cubs came back around to punish Lagrange in the third, with Michael Busch (on a hanging slider) and Alex Bregman (on a 100 mph fastball above the zone) crushing back-to-back home runs.
But Monday’s experience can serve as an additional lesson for Lagrange to put in his back pocket as he heads for Triple-A. What he showed this spring caught the attention of everyone with the Yankees, from the front office to coaches to even established veterans like Gerrit Cole and Max Fried, who both said they had never seen anything like Lagrange’s consistent triple-digit velocity — Cole even calling it “silly.”
Now, as Lagrange heads out of sight, it is up to him to make sure he is not out of mind.
“I wanted to feel that I could compete, face guys and challenge guys and throw pitches in the strike zone and be aggressive attacking the zone,” Lagrange said of his spring overall. “I think I was able to do that. You get confidence from doing that and competing with those guys on the field. Really good experience for me.”