Prospect Spotlight- Yoan Aybar

(February 29, 2020 - Source:
Kelly O'Conner/https://sittingstill.smugmug.com/keyword/yoan%20aybar)

This week's prospect spotlight is on Yoan Aybar! The left-hander is a 22 year-old reliever from Bani, Dominican Republic. Aybar is well known for his fastball, which has reached triple digits.  

Aybar signed with the Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 2013, when he was 16 years old, as an outfielder. Offensively, Aybar was solid in his first two professional seasons, hitting .271 in 2014 and .268 in 2015. However, he began to struggle once he advanced past rookie ball. In 2016 Aybar hit just .207 with a .562 OPS in low-A Lowell. He didn't show much improvement in 2017, and after four professional seasons with minimal offensive success, it looked like Aybar's professional baseball career was in danger.

While Aybar was nothing special at the plate, he managed to stand out in the field- particularly for his arm. Aybar had 8 outfield assists in only 57 games in 2016 and 11 assists in 79 games in 2017. The Red Sox took note of and asked him to pitch towards the end Spring Training 2018. So in an effort to save his baseball career, Aybar traded in his batting gloves for Jaeger Bands and converted to pitching.

In his first season as a professional pitcher, Aybar threw in 17 games between the GCL Red Sox and Lowell Spinners. In 2019, he was promoted to full-season A Greeneville, where he was able to use his arm strength to strike out 67 in 51.2 innings. He earned a late season call-up to high-A Salem, where he went on to post a 1.80 ERA in his final 4 games of the year. After less than two full seasons as a pitcher, the Red Sox decided to protect Aybar from the Rule-5 Draft and placed him on the 40-man roster. 

Despite the fact that the highest level he's pitched at is high-A, Aybar has big league stuff. MLB Pipeline has given Aybar's slider a solid 55 grade and his fastball an elite 70 grade.  Considering the fact that, prior to 2018, Aybar had not pitched since he was a kid, his rise has been impressive. Being placed on an MLB roster is something that most players do not experience, and Aybar managed to do it in only two seasons after being converted from a position player. However, he is still ways away from reaching the majors. He has shown an ability to miss bats, but he's also been susceptible to walks, as he put 6.5 batters on base per 9 innings in 2019. This isn't a big surprise for someone still learning how to pitch. His control should increase as he gains more experience. He'll begin 2020 in Salem, but don't expect him to stay there for long if he shows any improvement in his control.