A quiet force
Under-the-radar Yankees prospect thriving in Tampa
NICK Solak paused. He gave it about eight seconds before choosing his words carefully. Every Yankees prospect of course wants to be included in fans’ fantasies about the team’s future, wants to be a name that rolls off the tongue just as Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier do, wants fans to be chanting for him. But he doesn’t want to be the one campaigning.
“There’s a ton of good players in the organization, a ton of good prospects,” the 22-year-old second baseman with High-A Tampa said when asked if he wants to be part of the future at which fans salivate. “And it does — it pushes you, it motivates you to be surrounded by such great players. To help get your game to an even better place.”
For now, that place is in Tampa, where the 2016 second-round pick out of Louisville is quietly drawing the Yankees’ attention, if not outside hype. He does not have Frazier’s bat speed, Torres’ all-around excellence or Jorge Mateo’s breakneck speed. But Solak has a hitter’s eye and a penchant for good contact the team gushes over. He’s “hard-nosed,” as he described himself.
“Nick plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played. He’s an exceptional baseball player,” said Gary Denbo, the Yankees’ vice president of player development. “Plus runner, great bat-to-ball skills.”
Solak was under the radar right from the start, a surprise No. 62 pick when MLB.com had rated him the 147th-best prospect in the draft. He has since risen to the organization’s 18th-best prospect. The Yankees have not gotten much out of second-round picks in recent history — the most recent one to end up productive in the majors is Austin Romine, a 2007 second-rounder — and they saved some money with Solak, who signed a bit under slot.
But Solak is laying the groundwork to end the string of secondround disappointments and TBDs. Entering Friday, he was second in the Florida State League with a .420 on-base per- centage; his .315 batting average was good for fourth, and he had nearly as many walks (38) as strikeouts (43). Last year he tore up Low-A Staten Island, slashing .321/.412/.421. His power (four homers this year) is still growing, and his speed (eight steals) is quality, but not exceptional. He has been capable, if not spectacular, at second base after playing all over the diamond growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, then at Louisville.
Nothing pops. His game doesn’t have an exclamation point, which raises questions about how high his upside is, with Rob Refsnyder the easy organizational likeness. But Solak keeps hitting.
“I’m always working on trying to slow the game down,” the right-handed hitter said over the phone. “Every level that you play at, I think that’s the challenge. Whether it was going from college to short season last year or short season to this year.”
He speaks in generalities about his own game; he wants it to speak for itself. But, he said, “the highlight of my year” was the Tampa Yankees clinching the Florida State League North Division First-Half Title on Wednesday. Solak spoke at length about how far the team has come, how it “persevered” after a slow start, not mentioning his torrid finish to win the first-half title. In 22 games, he slashed .411/.482/.589 with two home runs and 14 RBIs.
Solak doesn’t want to promote himself, but he knows he’s maturing at a time when the Yankees’ farm system is thriving. Even if not a ton of people are noticing.
“Being a young player in the organization, that’s the goal,” Solak said about joining the wave of prospects the Yankees hope to shuffle up the ladder. “You want to do everything you can to put yourself in a position to keep improving, to keep developing as a player so you can help the team win up in the big leagues.”