Cade Smith was selected in the sixth round of the 2023 MLB Draft, where the New York Yankees usually find plenty of value. The middle and late rounds of the draft are some of the most successful for the Bronx Bombers on the pitching side of things, and while the 2023 draft class hasn’t produced an excellent amount of initial value, Cade Smith has certainly been impressive. The 22-year-old has displayed an incredible ability to miss bats thanks to an incredible duo of breaking ball pitches, and we could be looking at one of the Yankees’ top pitching prospects.
With a 3.48 ERA and .187 average against, what’s so special about Cade Smith and why should people keep tabs on the right-hander?
A Dynamic Season for Cade Smith Has Made Him One of the Yankees’ Top Prospect Arms
It’s no secret that teams target arms who can miss bats, as the New York Yankees saw their bullpen underperform and meltdown for most of the season due to their lack of strikeout pitchers. Cade Smith owns the best-qualified strikeout rate among all pitchers in Single-A (32.1%) and the reason for it is his unbelievable package of breaking pitches with deceptive and sharp vertical movement.
Everything starts with the four-seamer, which generates 17.7 Inches of Induced Vertical Break (IVB), which is the short-form measurement of vertical movement for a pitch. Short-form movement is the way a ball moves without the effects of gravity, and it’s important to isolate that kind of movement to better describe what hitters are seeing at the plate. The average fastball generates around 16 inches of IVB, so having more movement there means it’s dropping less as it crosses the plate, allowing it to play better up in the zone.
Another characteristic of Cade Smith’s fastball that makes it deceptive has nothing to do with the way he spins the ball, but rather the fact that he releases from a lower height than most (5.53′). It almost enhances the vertical movement up in the zone, it allows the ball to approach the plate at a flatter angle, creating a thinner margin for error in swing path or timing for the hitter. It’s not a dominant pitch due to middling velocity (92.9 MPH), but it sets up two demonic offerings.
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The star of the show here is his slider, a pitch he’s starting to use more and more to great success. On its own, his slider is a fantastic pitch thanks to how close it hovers to the zero-line in terms of movement. A pitch that sits at the zero-line vertically and horizontally can give hitters nightmares as they helplessly swing over a ball that drops ferociously, and it’s played up even more thanks to a four-seamer that can sit at the top of the zone.
His curveball also benefits from his strong ability to locate up in the zone with the fastball and set up a nasty breaking ball in the dirt, but this pitch is his go-to weapon against left-handed batters. A weird quirk about Cade Smith is that he’s better against lefties than righties due to the way his pitches move, as vertical deception is more effective against lefties than it is against righties. He doesn’t struggle in either matchup, but I think he’s adding a new element to his game to combat any issues down the road.
Cade Smith is starting to throw a sweeper, and this pitch could give him another element to his game that makes him even more devastating to face. We’re used to seeing pitchers throw two different kinds of fastballs, but how about the guys who throw two different kinds of sliders? Clay Holmes is one of the most notable two-slider pitchers in the organization, as he came up with a gyro slider and added a sweeper after the 2021 season.
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Gyro sliders tend to play better against opposite-handed batters whereas sweepers are deadly against same-handed batters, and while Cade Smith can spin his gyro slider to both kinds of hitters, having a sweeper for righties just gives them another look and it causes hitters to have to account for something completely foreign to his usual north-south profile. Smith has tinkered with the occasional changeup, but he doesn’t run into issues with lefties at all, so there’s not much to adjust there.
It’s a bit perplexing that Cade Smith isn’t in High-A yet considering he’s demolished Single-A in the strikeout department, and the ERA is finally beginning to reflect his excellent arsenal. He has a 1.35 ERA and 38.4% strikeout rate in his last four outings and a 3.48 ERA on the season as a whole, with a cool quirk in his game being a hilariously low 0.54 HR/9 rate. Granted, Single-A is home to a lot of teenage prospects who don’t have the power to launch the ball, but he’s still better than average in that regard.
Cade Smith isn’t a top-100 prospect, and I’m not entirely sure he’s top-10 in the organization right now, but he’s certainly on the upswing and could be a pick to click in 2025. If the Yankees can develop his velocity a bit more and get him throwing closer to 94 MPH on the fastball, it could make him even more of a swing-and-miss threat. He has the movement profile and depth in his arsenal to become a legit arm in the Yankees’ organization, and their track record with pitchers suggests he’s in the right place to take that kind of leap.