A few years ago, the Yankees had a threesome of promising pitching prospects: Two tall right-handed pitchers (Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman) along with crafty left-handed pitcher Manny Banuelos. Brackman completely flamed out, a first-round bust. When they made the pick, they knew it was an extreme gamble, and it just didn't go their way.
Banuelos developed into the organization's best pitching prospect, but injuries have derailed him. He has missed the entire 2013 season, but should be ready for Spring Training 2014.
That leaves Betances, who has been on a roller coaster his entire career.
The 6'8" RHP owns a 36-36 record with a 4.04 ERA in 151 minor league games, 122 of which have been starts. In 630 innings, he has struck out 703 batters (10 K/9) while walking 341. Overall, these numbers aren't unimpressive in the least, but the problem is that you have to look at more recent performances, and that hasn't been as pretty. In 2012, Betances had one of the worst seasons you will ever see from a prospect, posting a 6.44 ERA in 131.1 innings, walking 99 batters while striking out 124. He threw 20 wild pitches, hit 12 batters, and even balked four times. Suddenly, dreams of him becoming an overpowering major league starting pitcher started to fade.
That trend continued into 2013, before the Yankees decided to move him to the bullpen, which has changed his career. In 27 games as a reliever, Betances has posted a 1.46 ERA with 63/21 K/BB ratio over 49.1 innings. As you can see, the walk total still isn't impressive, but that is likely always going to be the case - the key for him is to keep the walks relatively in check.
Betances will be out of options in the spring of 2014, meaning that the Yankees will not be able to send him to Scranton without clearing waivers first. Because of that, it is imperative they look at him as soon as possible to see if he can be a cheap power arm for next year's bullpen. For that reason, I am hoping Betances stays the rest of the season. However, that is not a guarantee - the Yankees are now carrying 13 pitchers again, and it is possible Betances was only called up as an extra arm.
As you would suspect, Betances throws extremely hard - regularly hitting the mid-90s with the ability to dial it up even higher. He also features a sharp curveball.
The only downside is that he has yet to appear in back-to-back games this season after being placed into the bullpen, so he isn't yet your traditional short reliever type.
Once again, David Adams gets a bit of the shaft by being outrighted back to the minors. I would have rather seen they make a lateral move (DFA'ing Joba Chamberlain) rather than push Adams back to the minors. When you are one game over .500 in the middle of August, you have to try to keep younger players around to get experience - David Adams has nothing to prove in the minors anymore.
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