CLEARWATER, Fla. — Eric Reyzelman’s breakout season surprised even Eric Reyzelman.
Last year, the Yankees prospect was largely happy just to be back on a mound.
He had undergone Tommy John surgery as a freshman at the University of San Francisco.
He finished collegiately at LSU, where he just about threw only a fastball and rode that fastball to become a fifth-round pick of the Yankees in 2022.
He proceeded to appear in just nine games in his first two professional seasons because of more injury issues: Back pain was sourced to a cyst on his back that required a series of surgeries to fix.
He took the mound in 2024 as a forgotten prospect who finally was healthy and now was differently equipped: a one-pitch arsenal had expanded to three, having learned a slider and changeup while rehabbing.
A pitcher who used to have to “find a way,” he said, through guts and smarts found himself able to blaze past hitters instead.
He soared through the system last year, touching three levels and finishing at Double-A Somerset in a campaign that finished with a 1.16 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 38 ²/₃ innings.
“Going out and seeing how it did play, and how the results looked,” Reyzelman said this week, “at first, it was a shock.”
He and hitters were equally baffled about overpowering stuff that resulted in a ridiculous stat line and an invitation to major league camp.
This camp began poorly — an allergic reaction sent him to the hospital before the Grapefruit League season even had started — but has taken a turn toward what might be the new norm for Reyzelman.
In his second appearance of the exhibition season, Reyzelman faced three batters and sent them all back to the dugout with their heads down.
Phillies hitters on Thursday swung at eight of his pitches and missed five times, Reyzelman reaching 98.4 mph with his fastball as he struck out the side.
“That looked like a guy,” manager Aaron Boone said, using a scouting term that is a high compliment for a prospect. “It’s really good stuff, easy strikes, presence. Really strong outing.”
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Reyzelman still leads with a fastball that has plenty of ride but now has a changeup that he is still tinkering with — throwing it a bit harder than last season in a fashion that makes hitters think a fastball is coming — to go with a sweeping slider.
“We’ve been able to do some crazy, crazy, things,” Reyzelman, a 23-year-old righty, said of his time in the lab with Yankees pitching minds. “The slider and the changeup have come a long way.”
He threw two sliders Thursday, both landing in the zone for strikes.
Phillies batters swung at one of his two changeups and missed.
“That was ho-hum,” Boone said after the 7-7 tie at BayCare Ballpark, “that was a dominant inning right there.”
Reyzelman surely will not break camp with the Yankees, having pitched just 50 ¹/₃ career innings in the minors, but he is looking like a pitcher who might be able to help as soon as this season.
Such a development would be welcome for the Northern California native, but he is dreaming bigger.
“My real goal isn’t to pitch in the major leagues,” Reyzelman said. “It’s to win the World Series, and it’s to be on a World Series-winning team and to have a real role in helping them do that.“Whether [a debut is] this year, whether that’s next year, whether that’s a month from now or two years, I know that I’m not changing a thing that I’m doing. I’m doing the exact same thing that’s gotten me to this point. And I know that I’m in an organization that knows exactly which buttons to press and which guys to use and how to use them.”
