In Yankees history, the 2016 season goes down as a ground floor of sorts.
Gary Sanchez exploded onto the scene. Aaron Judge went deep in his very first big-league at-bat, then struggled. Clint Frazier and Gleyber Torres arrived in the Yankees organization via rare selloff trades, as did Justus Sheffield and Dillon Tate, who helped bring back James Paxton and Zack Britton, respectively, in trades.
It turns out another interesting player used that ‘16 Yankees season to learn some stuff about himself. And now he’s applying that stuff — nasty stuff — elsewhere.
Kirby Yates’ killer split-fingered fastball, which he deploys as an important reliever for the Padres, came to be during his time in his one season with the Yankees.