With two first-round picks, including the highest one the team has had in 22 years, the Yankees’ scouting director, Damon Oppenheimer, said Thursday in evaluating the team’s draft that he felt pressure to get this one right.
“It does feel like that,” he said, speaking on a conference call the day after the draft concluded. “I’m not going to lie about it.”
Whether those first two picks, pitcher James Kaprielian from U.C.L.A. (16th over all) and shortstop Kyle Holder from the University of San Diego (30th), develop into productive players — a rarity for the Yankees since the 1990s — will not be known right away.