Yankees take towering pitchers Ben Hess, Bryce Cunningham to start 2024 MLB Draft

FORT WORTH, Texas — In the draft and perhaps nowhere else, the Yankees routinely are charged with doing a lot with a little. Their initial selection has not landed in the top half of the first round since 1993.

Their finds — like Aaron Judge at No. 32 in 2013 — are found after plenty of other clubs pass on that player.

The Yankees have to locate the gems that others overlook.

Their strategy Sunday appeared to be identifying what they hope is a market inefficiency: pitchers built like workhorses and with elite stuff, even if their command has not been harnessed.

First the Yankees lassoed pitcher Ben Hess from the University of Alabama with the No. 26-overall pick before taking another big righty, Bryce Cunningham out of Vanderbilt, in the second round of the draft at Cowtown Coliseum.

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Both are strapping, and both will be projects.

Hess, a 21-year-old Illinois native, struck out 106 batters in just 68 ⅓ innings last season, but his control (35 walks) is an obvious area of improvement and helped lead to a 5.80 ERA in his junior season.

The Yankees have excelled in developing pitchers and tend to like bigger and stronger arms.

Hess is listed at 6-foot-5, 255 pounds and has stuff that made him the best strikeout artist (13.34 per nine innings) in Crimson Tide history.

He also finished with a 4.81 ERA over three college seasons.

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“Ben checks off a lot of things for us,” Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ VP of domestic amateur scouting, said in a statement. “He fits what we are looking for in a potential top-of-the-line Major League starter. Specifically, he’s a big, power right-hander that can throw two breaking balls and can reach up to 97 [mph]. We think there is even more to come from Ben with our player development program.”

The Yankees continued the trend of grabbing sturdy, towering pitchers at No. 53 in selecting Cunningham, an Alabama native.

The 6-foot-5, 230-pound right-hander can reach the upper 90s with his fastball and owns a changeup that is hailed as his best pitch.

Like Hess, Cunningham is known for stuff over control, having struck out 168 in 160 innings over three seasons with the Commodores but also walking 71 and posting a 4.95 ERA.

“We love Bryce because he’s another pick that could have top-end starter potential and has already been tested in the SEC,” Oppenheimer said. “He’s a quality pitcher and a powerful right-hander with a big fastball that can reach up to 99 [mph], a good changeup, and a slider that continues to improve. Bryce has continued to get better, and credit to him on what he has done on his own, his performance in the Cape Cod Baseball League, and the support he received at Vanderbilt.”

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Hess became the Yankees’ first righty pitcher selected in the initial round since Clarke Schmidt in 2017, a selection that began a fairly solid run of Yankees first-rounders.

Since the Schmidt draft, the Yankees have turned three late first-round picks into major league contributors in The Bronx.

Schmidt, Anthony Volpe (2019) and Austin Wells (2020) have graduated into big-league help, and there is hope with Spencer Jones (2022) and George Lombard Jr. (2023).

T.J. Sikkema (2019) and Trey Sweeney (2021) were used in trades.

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