BBB Top Prospect Countdown #29: Vicente (Jose) Campos

In 2009, Campos was a 16-year old kid from Venezuela hoping to one day make it to the Major Leagues. He had a whale of a second season pitching with the Mariners in the Arizona Fall League. He followed it up with even better numbers in 2011 and wound up ranked the Mariners fifth best prospect in their entire organization. In January of 2012, Campos was traded to the Yankees along with Michael Pineda. He was awarded the same ranking he received in Seattle with New York, but things have been gloomy since Campos arrived. If no progression is made in 2016, don’t expect him to be part of the organization for much longer.

Photo Via Yanks Go Yard

Breakdown

It was aforementioned that when Campos broke into the states, he was electric. The 2010 Arizona Fall League treated Campos well. He went 8-2 in 12 starts and pitched to a 3.16 ERA. Even more impressive might be the 2.30 FIP, or fielder independent pitching, he threw to. He followed up 2010, looking even sharper than the year before. His record wasn’t indicative of such, but he shrunk his ERA to 2.32 in 14 starts with the Everett Aquasox who are an affiliate of the Mariners.

At just 19-years young, Campos was traded to the Yankees and that’s when all his troubles began. I mentioned his rank with the organization earlier, but that didn’t last long. After making 19 starts for the Charleston Riverdogs in 2013, Campos dropped to number 14 in the Yanks farm system. Then the injury bug hit and kept Campos out the entire 2014 campaign.

That injury bug, more specifically, was Tommy John surgery. Campos returned in 2015 and was way less than impressive. Not many pitchers succeed the first year back from TJ, especially those with zero big league experience. He stunk it up in the 13 games he started for three different Yankee affiliates. He went 3-8 with a 6.29 ERA and allowed more hits (64) than he recorded innings (54.1).

Projection

It’s very hard to project how pitchers respond to Tommy John surgery. Campos didn’t do a good job with it at all in in ’15, and will look to bounce back in ’16. I’m not sure it’s possible he pitches worse than he did last year. He turns 24 during the season, so we should hope Campos can pitch well enough and zoom through the system and start some games in triple-A by the end of the season. If he can do that, we could expect him to be with the Yanks heading into 2017. But, if he can’t take a leap like that, Campos is going to have a hard time proving why he should continue to be a part of the Yankees organization.

You can look at his full minor league statistics here.
You can keep up with our full top 30 list with links to our breakdowns HERE.

Article by: James Grande

Follow me on twitter: @The_Real_Grande

Follow the BBB on twitter: @BronxBomberBlog