It was an off day for the Trenton Thunder last year, and the two Yankee pitching prospects from Tennessee decided it was the perfect time to take a train trip northeast to Gotham and soak in the city. Maybe even travel to the Bronx and watch the big league club up close.
The two pitchers scored tickets to a game between the Bombers and Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. Like many who see the baseball cathedral on 161st Street for the first time – the pinstriped players, the Bleacher Creatures’ roll call, the pristine green outfield, the perfectly-maintained infield dirt, packed seats – Justus Sheffield says he was overwhelmed.
“That was the very first time in New York for me,” says Sheffield. “I went with one of the other pitchers, Matt Marsh. It was definitely a fun experience, especially knowing that I hopefully have the opportunity to play in that stadium. It was breathtaking walking in there for the first time. They were wearing pinstripes. It made everything seem more realistic. It was definitely a motivator seeing that. I want to do nothing but get out there on that mound and pitch.”
Sheffield, the 20-year-old southpaw from Tullahoma, Tenn., was part of the 2016 deadline blockbuster trade that brought him and highly-touted outfield prospect Clint Frazier and two other players to the Yankees in exchange for stud lefty reliever Andrew Miller going to Cleveland. Sheffield spent most of last year pitching for the Single-A Lynchburg Hillcats (an Indians affiliate) of the Carolina League, before joining the Single-A Tampa Yankees of the Florida State League after the trade. Sheffield ended the 2016 minor league season with the Double-A Thunder.
Although Yankee general manager Brian Cashman says that he’s not planning on Sheffield pitching for the major league club in 2017, the addition of the lefty is one more piece of what Cashman and the Bombers’ front office – and especially championship-starved Yankee fans — are hoping will be a 21st-century pinstriped dynasty. The Yankees have one of the strongest farm systems among the 30 MLB teams, and Sheffield is right in the middle of the Baby Bomber youth influx.
“Justus Sheffield is sitting, if not at the top, towards the top of our pitching prospect side,” says Cashman. “He’s right up there with (James) Kaprielian, Chance Adams and (Luis) Severino, fighting for ‘I’m the best.’ Who’s to say he is or isn’t? Sheffield’s a three-pitch mix guy — fastball, changeup, slider. He’s a 20-year-old that sits at 93 (mph) and tops out at 97, with an above-average slider and above-average changeup. We’ve been very excited about his makeup and development.”
* * *
Justus Sheffield spent most of last year pitching for the Single-A Lunchburg Hillcats in the Carolina League.
(Brian Westerholt/AP)
Imagine coaching two brothers, both hard throwers, the older sibling a right-hander, the younger a lefty, on your high school team in the same season.
Brad White had such an experience.
When White was the head baseball coach at Tullahoma High for nine years, he coached Jordan and Justus Sheffield and had Travis Sheffield, the boys’ father, as an assistant coach. During the 2013 season, the Sheffield boys were mowing down batters at will.
“Every year Justus was there, we made it to the sectionals, which is the Sweet 16,” says White, who now coaches baseball at Lawrence County High in Lawrenceburg, Tenn. “Justus’ junior year (2013), we were nationally ranked. We got as high as 12th in the nation. That year, which was his brother Jordan’s senior year, we also made the state tournament and got to the game that was essentially the semifinals. That 2013 team was a special team.”
In the game that would punch the Tullahoma Wildcats’ ticket to the state tournament, Justus Sheffield was on the mound in the seventh inning (high school games are only seven innings as opposed to nine).
“The best feeling I ever had as a coach was then. It was going into the 7th inning. I walked up to Justus on the mound. I said, ‘Look, here’s how we’re going to get this hitter and that hitter.’ And he patted me on the back and said, ‘Coach, I got this.’ And he went out and got the last three outs and we went to the state tournament,” says White, laughing. “That was a pretty good feeling when he pats me on the back and says, ‘Don’t worry about this coach.’ That has to be the best moment of my coaching career, honestly.”
Justus Sheffield stars for Tullahoma High in Tennessee before being selected by the Indians in 2014.
(Courtesy of Brad White)
While Jordan Sheffield, the right-hander, elected to go to Vanderbilt after high school, Justus signed to play for the Commodores and head coach Tim Corbin, only to change his decision and enter the Major League Baseball amateur draft in 2014. The Indians selected Justus in the first round with the 31st overall pick.
“I got Justus his 8th grade summer, and the first time he ever went with (the varsity team), we went to Laramie, Wyoming. That’s a long way from Tennessee. He played on the varsity starting his freshman year and played all the way through,” says White. “Justus was always such a competitor. He’s very athletic and being left-handed, that was a feather in his cap. He was always compared with his brother, Jordan, who was a little more athletic. The great thing about Justus, he wanted to achieve a lot in the game of baseball. He could take coaching and he could take what you were asking and put it into practice. He’s a very smart kid.”
But less than a year into Sheffield’s professional baseball life – he began in rookie ball with the Arizona League Indians in 2014 – the then 18-year-old pitcher put his career in serious jeopardy when he was arrested in Tullahoma on January 12, 2015. Sheffield was charged with aggravated criminal trespassing and underage drinking, according to a Tullahoma News report.
The Tullahoma Police Department does not make public juvenile arrest records, but according to the Tullahoma News report, Sheffield allegedly broke into the home of Brody Thomasson at 4:30 in the morning “to discuss some issues.” One of the other residents of the home, Jeremy Thurman, told authorities he was awakened by someone knocking at the door, and that later Thurman saw Sheffield walk through the house toward Thomasson’s bedroom door, the Tullahoma News report said. Thurman heard yelling coming from the room and called police.
Thomasson told authorities that Sheffield ran into his room, yelled at him and threatened to “beat up” Thomasson for “messing around with (Sheffield’s) girlfriend,” according to the Tullahoma News report. Sheffield and two other Tullahoma baseball players were arrested. Sheffield was released after he posted a $5,500 bond, according to reports. Weeks later, in February 2015, Sheffield pleaded guilty to the charges in the Coffee County Courthouse. The court handed down a deferred judgment, according to a Cleveland.com report, and Sheffield’s record would be expunged in a year if he avoided any further trouble.
“I was stupid. I was 18, just immature, really,” Sheffield says now. “I felt like I’ve learned from that mistake. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through. It was my first off-season and I was 18, and dumb, and immature. I’ve become a better person, a smarter person and definitely more mature. I’ve looked at it as a game of baseball – you can’t always go out there and throw a perfect game or seven shutout innings. We all make mistakes. We’ve got to learn from mistakes. I thank God I was able to get a second chance and prove myself.”
Justus Sheffield, who pitched for the Yankees in the Instructional League in the fall, is armed with a fastball that tops out at 97 mph.
(Mike Janes/AP)
Cashman adds that Sheffield’s arrest was definitely something that the Yankees looked into when Cashman was considering the trade with Cleveland, but that he and the organization’s front office and scouting department were and are convinced the incident was a “blemish that hopefully is in his rearview mirror.”
“His reputation outside of that blemish is pretty high,” says Cashman. “You live and learn and you grow. Everything else, how he goes about his business, how he’s projected, has been nothing but exemplary.”
* * *
Justus Sheffield says he was in his hotel room in Winston-Salem, North Carolina one evening last summer looking at ESPN and his Twitter account. The MLB trade deadline was approaching, and at one point, the lefty thought he might be part of a deal for catcher Jonathan Lucroy, who eventually went to the Rangers from Milwaukee. Sheffield says he finally went to bed thinking only about his upcoming start for Lynchburg.
“It was like eight in the morning and I’m getting a call from Carter Hawkins (the Indians’ director of player development). He just told me that I got traded to the Yankees, and he’s thanking me for all I’ve done. At that moment I was just like, ‘Am I dreaming right now? Am I even awake?’ It was wild,” says Sheffield. “Within the next couple days, I was in my car, loaded up, driving down to Tampa, getting ready to get started.”
Sheffield had a combined 10-6 record with three minor league teams last year, including the Thunder, and he finished with a combined 3.09 ERA and 129 strikeouts over 125.1 innings pitched with the Hillcats, Tampa Yankees and Thunder. He started 25 games in 2016. Cashman says Sheffield will begin 2017 with the Double-A Thunder.
Yankee GM Brian Cashman on Justus Sheffield: ‘We’ve been very excited about his makeup and development.’
(Mike Janes/AP)
“I would say, when you possess great skill, you can’t deny somebody (an opportunity),” says Cashman, when asked about Sheffield possibly pitching in the Bronx this year. “But I would not plan on that. I would not expect that. I think (Sheffield) should compete and do what he’s done at all previous levels, and hopefully dominate and emerge as one of the better ones in the Eastern League.
“I would expect (Sheffield) to continue his development. He’s got essentially three levels to conquer – go through Double-A and Triple-A and get to the big leagues, all within a six-month baseball calendar,” Cashman adds. “That’s asking a lot. That would be expecting too much, and for a 20-year-old to boot. We’re not looking at New York for 2017, but again, I’ve had players move faster than their development programs before and I’ve had great players take longer. I would think 2018 would be the more likely scenario to start expecting him to get his foot wet in the major leagues, but I don’t know.”
Frazier, the prodigious talent that was part of the Miller trade, says he is glad that Sheffield is now his Yankees teammate after the two played in the instructional league last year.
“He’s a guy that knows the stuff that he has, and he’s not afraid to come at you with his fastball,” says Frazier, 22, who the Daily News profiled in early December. “I faced his brother Jordan, and both of them throw hard, and have electric stuff. The pieces are coming together.”
Sheffield and Frazier say they are looking to room together in Tampa for spring training. Like Frazier, Sheffield says he got star-struck during instructional league last year, when the young prospects got to meet and talk with former Yanks like Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, Alex Rodriguez and former Yankee pitchers Andy Pettitte and Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez.
“Seeing Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez, El Duque, Alfonso Soriano, and hearing them speak, you could hear a pin drop when they were talking,” says Sheffield. “It was jaw-dropping. Talking with Andy Pettitte, that was pretty cool. Just getting to know them, and pick their brains, I’ll always be hoping to talk to them.”
Justus Sheffield is looking forward to pitching opposite his role model David Price one day.
(Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
Sheffield says he’s played against Gleyber Torres – the blue chip shortstop prospect the Yankees got in the Aroldis Chapman deal with the Cubs last year – the past three years and seen plenty of Torres’ skills to know that the Baby Bombers are legit.
“He’s the truth,” Sheffield says of Torres. “He’s only 20. He plays the game the right way. He plays hard. He’s fundamentally sound. I feel like Gleyber, Clint, other guys, they’re going to be a big part of the Yankees the next few years. My brother (Jordan, who was drafted by the Dodgers last year) and I have been working really hard this off-season. I feel like I’m ready for spring training. I feel like this is the best I’ve felt in any off-season. I feel like it’s going to be a good year.”
But when it comes to pitchers he idolized growing up, Sheffield rooted for a fellow southpaw who’s now on the enemy. Say what?
“I’ve always looked up to David Price,” says Sheffield. “Ever since (Price) went to Vanderbilt, I really started paying attention to him mechanically, how he carries himself. Just watching him play the game, I love it. He’s like a role model. I’ve talked to him a few times. We’re 40 minutes away from each other, our hometowns (in Tennessee).”
Should Sheffield climb the farm ranks quickly, a la Joba Chamberlain circa 2007, perhaps Sheffield will be on that Stadium mound one day opposing Price and the Red Sox in a pivotal game.
“Hopefully we’ll get that matchup someday soon,” says Sheffield.
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Source: NY Daily News Headlines Sports News
The post Yankee prospect Justus Sheffield opens up about being Baby Bomber appeared first on ParlayToday.