New York Yankees Rising Star, Former LSU Tigers Standout Dominating Pro Debut

The 2023 LSU Tigers college baseball team has already generated some of MLB's best rising stars in Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews. The New York Yankees may have a member of that same team on their way to stardom for them as well.

In the sixth-round of the 2024 MLB draft, the Yankees selected southpaw Griffin Herring. Herring was teammates with Crews and Skenes on the 2023 Tigers roster as a true freshman and had some solid moments, but he really broke out in 2024.

He was a member of the All-SEC Second-Team and was a Second-Team All-American, but New York was able to grab him in the sixth.

Herring has made five starts for the Single-A Tampa Tarpons and has been completely dominant. He has a 0.60 ERA and has struck out 39 batters in 30 innings of work.

He has also walked just 10 batters in that time, a solid 3.00 BB/9.

The 21-year-old is following the promising pace he set during his final year at LSU, when he had a 1.79 ERA and 1.033 WHIP and a 12.0 K/9.

MLB's pipeline ranking has Herring as the No. 25 prospect in the Yankees farm system and that feels like it has to change soon.

He mostly uses a slider/sinker combination that relies much more on stuff than velocity. Despite his sinker only averaging around 91 MPH, he gets a lot of swings and misses on it.

The biggest thing he will need to work on to get to the Majors is finding a third and likely fourth pitch to go along, while also adding a little bit of strength.

Herring has been working on figuring out a changeup and it has had solid results this season. He just doesn't have a real change of velocity right now.

He barely threw that changeup in college, so he has made some solid progress as a pro.

The Tigers have been a bit of a factory for New York in recent years. Eric Reyzelman and Thatcher Hurd are also pitching prospects that were also drafted out of LSU.

Hurd was Herring's teammate for two seasons with the Tigers, but struggled much more. He had a 6.55 ERA last season. Still, he was drafted in the third round because he has a very toolsy pitch mix that projects to have a higher ceiling.

He is the Yankees' No. 23 prospect but has yet to make his debut in the New York system. The 22-year-old is currently recovering from Tommy John surgery that he had in February, so his path to the Majors will be much longer.