The Yankees signed right-hander Dylan Coleman to a minor league deal last week, according to Coleman’s MLB.com profile page. It wasn’t specified if the contract included an invitation to New York’s Major League spring camp.
Sixty-eight of Coleman’s 93 2/3 career innings in the majors came as a member of the Royals bullpen in 2022, when the righty posted a 2.78 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 12.8% walk rate. These promising numbers drastically went south in 2023, as Coleman has an 8.84 ERA and a walk rate that ballooned to 19.8%, almost eclipsing his 21.9K%.
Kansas City traded Coleman to the Astros during the 2023-24 offseason, and he tossed just a single MLB inning for Houston in 2024 before being released in August. That remains Coleman’s most recent trip to the Show, as a minor league deal with the Orioles last offseason only led to more struggles. Coleman posted a 4.91 ERA over 14 2/3 innings in Baltimore’s farm system with as many walks (14) as strikeouts, and the Orioles released him in May.
Since that time, Coleman has been overhauling his mechanics with the Feole Pitching training workshop, and as per a recent post from Feole’s Instagram account, Coleman has added a cutter and power sinker to his repertoire, and his fastball velocity is up to 100mph. Coleman averaged over 98mph on his fastball when he debuted with the Royals in 2021, but that velo dropped to 95.2mph by the 2023 season.
Any team would be intrigued by triple digits on the radar gun, and there’s no risk for the Yankees in taking a first-hand look at the revamped Coleman, and also seeing what their own pitching development crew can add to his approach. All of the stuff in the world won’t help a pitcher who can’t get the ball over the plate, of course, and it remains to be seen if Coleman’s fixes extend to his extreme control problems of the last few years.
