The Yankees made several changes to Herring after drafting him (more sliders, better extension, higher arm slot) and the result looks like a stable backend starter despite 30-grade fastball velocity.<\/p>\n
Herring spent two years as LSU\u2019s most consistent long reliever (working as many as five innings) and was a draft-eligible sophomore in 2024. The Yankees made multiple changes to his delivery and pitch usage, which helped him dominate Low-A and earn a promotion after just eight starts. He had a 1.71 ERA combined at both levels at the time of the trade, though his K% dipped quite a bit after he was moved up to Hudson Valley. Herring\u2019s fastball only averages about 90 mph, but lives off deception and riding life. Since turning pro, his arm slot has been raised, but Herring\u2019s stride down the mound has gotten bigger and longer, and his extension was just shy of seven feet at the time of the trade. His loose, whippy arm action prevents hitters from seeing the baseball until release, and despite lacking anything close to average big league fastball velocity, Herring\u2019s heater has generated above-average miss and chase so far this year.<\/p>\n
With the Yankees, Herring also emphasized use of his slider, which has become his most-deployed pitch. It ranged from 80-85 mph in his final outing prior to the deal, and has tight late movement but lacks huge depth. It\u2019s playing like an above-average pitch in pro ball. Herring didn\u2019t really have a changeup in college, but he\u2019s added one as a pro and is throwing it about 14% of the time. His feel for it isn\u2019t bad considering he\u2019s just begun using it, but it often cuts on him or finishes too high. A smooth on-mound operator, Herring looks the part of a starter even though he isn\u2019t especially physical because of his mechanical grace. It\u2019s impressive that he\u2019s maintained his excellent college strike-throwing even though his delivery has been changed, and he projects as a high-floored backend starter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees made several changes to Herring after drafting him (more sliders, better extension, higher arm slot) and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,167,52,38897,4316,4,168],"class_list":{"0":"post-570460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-rockies","11":"tag-colorado-rockies-minor-leagues-and-prospects","12":"tag-coloradorockies","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rockies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116064155499597118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}