{"id":112160,"date":"2026-01-13T22:06:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=112160"},"modified":"2026-01-13T22:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:06:46","slug":"pitching-prospect-yankees-mac-heuer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/13\/pitching-prospect-yankees-mac-heuer\/","title":{"rendered":"This Pitching Prospect Could Be the Next Best Thing for the Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amidst the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/08\/2026-mlb-arbitration-tracker-complete-list-of-deadline-day-settlements\/\" target=\"_self\">lack of offseason noise<\/a> in the Bronx, there is one strong positive to look forward to. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/10\/yankees-can-strengthen-bullpen-by-salvaging-these-pitching-options\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Yankees<\/a> have pitching prospect<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=heuer-000mac\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Mac Heuer<\/a> heating up in the farm system. The club needs to shift focus to his development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>This Pitching Prospect Could Be the Next Best Thing for the Yankees<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The silence in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/09\/bellinger-and-the-yankees-at-stalemate-in-negotiations\/\" target=\"_self\">Yankees&#8217; offseason<\/a> market could have a pin-drop illuminate a room. The club\u2019s inactivity with top free agent prospects is causing concern. The non-movement is actually starting to stir conversation, and not good ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This shadowed what the scouting department has worked tirelessly on. The Yankees&#8217; scouting staff has done its part in equipping the club with<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/08\/16\/yankees-top-30-prospect-additions\/\" target=\"_self\"> future pieces<\/a> to succeed. Heuer is one of those guys.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The right-handed pitcher\u2019s development has been diminished in the clouds of the offseason. It\u2019s time the club brainstorms a plan for Heuer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mac Heuer 2025 College Baseball Highlights! | Texas Tech Red Raiders\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5HBW2xCmmhk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Mac Heuer: A Successful 2025 Draft Pick\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s hard to call someone \u201csuccessful\u201d while still in the minors. However, Heuer is deemed as such, due to the work he\u2019s been displaying. This is specifically relevant to metrics and rankings. The success also pertains to the team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Bronx Bombers drafted Heuer in the 8th round of last year\u2019s draft selections. He was taken out of Texas Tech University after playing only two years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This wasn\u2019t Heuer\u2019s first time being drafted. He was also selected in the 16th round of the 2023 MLB draft by the Cleveland Guardians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Originally from Georgia, Heuer was a member of the Georgia Home Education Association. He played for the TG D-Backs scout team at this time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perfect Game Baseball had him ranked 5th overall in the state, and first overall as a right-handed pitcher. Heuer was ranked 59th nationally and 17th at his position. The 2023 graduate was liked early on and was considered a professional player.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>College Career<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heuer played two seasons at Texas Tech in the Big 12 conference; he started in 2024. The right-hander posted a 5.94 ERA and a .444 win-loss percentage in his first season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Texas Tech starter finished his last season in 2025. Heuer finished 2025 with a 6.28 ERA. He posted a 6.12 career ERA over 100 innings. His overall repertoire and durability impressed the Yankees.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Projection\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heuer did not show out too well in college ball, statistics-wise. His physicality, pitch profile, and tools are what made him draft-worthy; this is what has evaluators excited to see him in professional baseball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heuer stands at 6\u20195\u201d, 265 lbs, with a strong athletic profile. He\u2019s a very physical presence on the mound while fielding his position well. The Texas right-hander is consistent with his delivery and good with command.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Yankees prospect works well, with strikeout-ability and aggressiveness in the zone. He struck out a total of 94 batters in college while walking only 48.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The big right-handed prospect works between 93-95 mph, working up to 98 mph. Heuer holds high hopes for many in the organization. He\u2019s expected to rise quickly throughout the ranks, with a professional assignment in the lower levels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Professionally, Heuer is compared to Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes in terms of starter versus reliever and pitch repertoire. He\u2019s recently been compared to Yankees prospect big leaguer Cam Schlittler.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Main Photo Credits: David Reginek-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amidst the lack of offseason noise in the Bronx, there is one strong positive to look forward to. The New York Yankees have pitching prospect Mac Heuer heating up in the farm system. The club needs to shift focus to his development.\u00a0 This Pitching Prospect Could Be the Next Best Thing for the Yankees The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5126,"featured_media":112169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071],"tags":[29232],"class_list":["post-112160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","tag-mac-heuer"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112170,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112160\/revisions\/112170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}