Trade acquisitions, draftees on display at Yanks’ instructs

Before this summer, the last time the Yankees acted as midseason sellers was in 1989, when they provided the final piece of a World Series championship club for the Athletics in the form of Rickey Henderson. When New York found itself in that unusual position again this July, it made the most of the situation.

By trading Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, Andrew Miller to the Indians and Carlos Beltran to the Rangers, the Yankees picked up 10 prospects, including three on MLBPipeline.com’s Top 100 Prospects list (outfielder Clint Frazier, shortstop Gleyber Torres, left-hander Justus Sheffield) plus two others who previously had made the list (right-hander Dillon Tate, outfielder Billy McKinney). New York already had a strong farm system, and the deals made it one of baseball’s best and arguably its deepest.

• Yankees Top 30 Prospects list

That depth is on display in the Yankees’ instructional league camp, which opened Sept. 18 and runs through Friday in Tampa, Fla.

“I’ve been coming to instructional league here for a long time, and this is the best group of players we’ve had in New York Yankees instructional league,” farm director Gary Denbo said. “We have a very exciting group of young athletes.”

Trade acquisitions Frazier, Sheffield and McKinney are all in Tampa, while Torres and Tate are playing with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. The Yankees’ top-ranked prospect, Frazier had been promoted to Triple-A right before he changed organizations and batted just .228/.278/.396 with three homers in 25 games at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Those small-sample-size numbers don’t do justice to the 22-year-old’s upside, which is considerable thanks to his huge raw power and solid speed and arm strength.

“He’s working on his overall game,” Denbo said. “He admittedly put pressure on himself to perform to justify the deal. He started to perform better later on in the season and he has looked outstanding down here. He has been one of our hardest workers and he has used the time to develop relationships with his teammates and our hitting and defensive coaches.”

Sheffield, who came to New York with Frazier as part of the Miller trade, is the top pitching prospect in the system. The 20-year-old fared better after changing addresses, going 3-1 with a 1.50 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 30 innings, mostly in high Class A. His stuff has been good as advertised, starting with a lively 92-96 mph fastball.

“His outings here have been very good,” Denbo said. “He’s showing above-average fastball command. His slider is getting a lot of swings and misses, to both right-handers and left-handers. In his last outing, he showed some …

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