Yankees may finally have unlocked long-term Padres project and it's very infuriating

There are few things more irritating than watching a team like the Yankees stroll in and start making sense of a pitcher who used to feel like your organization’s unfinished science experiment. Yovanny Cruz was never a clean prospect story for the Padres. He was pure volatility wrapped in triple-digit velocity. Now it looks like New York might be the team figuring out how to make the chaos usable.

Cruz turned heads again against the Rays when he retired the side in order, struck out two, did not issue a walk, and averaged better than 100 mph with his sinker. Joel Sherman noted it looked a lot like his outing against Atlanta the previous week. Once is noise. Twice starts to sound like a pattern. And with Cruz, the whole conversation has always come back to whether he can throw enough strikes for that ridiculous arm talent to matter.

Padres fans won’t enjoy what the Yankees may be unlocking in Yovanny Cruz

That was the barrier in San Diego, and it was a fair one. The Padres signed Cruz to a minor league deal in November 2023 after his run in the Cubs system, then parked him in Double-A San Antonio for 2024. The raw stuff was still there, but the line was not screaming future late-inning weapon. He posted a 4.55 ERA in 29 2/3 innings with 35 strikeouts and 16 walks. 

Cruz was a development bet. The whole point of taking a flier on a guy like that is to be the team that benefits if the command ever improves from frustrating to at least manageable. Instead, Cruz left after 2024, signed with Boston for 2025, and then landed with the Yankees as a non-roster invitee for 2026. Along the way, he kept doing the same thing he has always done: missing bats at a huge rate while walking too many people. Last season at Double-A Portland, he had a 3.03 ERA and 72 strikeouts in 59 1/3 innings, but also 44 walks.

This current version feels so irritating from a Padres lens. The Yankees do not need Cruz to suddenly morph into some pristine command artist. But they can unlock a version of him that throws enough strikes to let the sinker and power stuff bully hitters. If these early spring outings are a real hint of that, then the Padres are going to have to watch another organization cash in on a project they once held. 

Okay, but it’s not like San Diego gave up on Mariano Rivera. Cruz still has plenty to prove. But it’s absolutely about recognizing a familiar annoyance: the Padres identified the talent, carried the volatility, and moved on before any payoff showed up. Now one of baseball’s richest, most smugly effective development machines may be the team that gets the fun part.