Left-hander Justus Sheffield has found a new organization, as the former top prospect has signed a minor league deal with the Braves, per the transaction tracker on his MLB.com profile page.
Sheffield, who will celebrate his 27th birthday tomorrow, was the 31st overall pick in the 2014 draft, taken by Cleveland in the first round. Sheffield was long a staple of top 100 prospect lists as he made his ascent throughout the minors, appearing on Baseball America’s top 100 list as early as 2016 before eventually climbing to the 27th spot on the ranking ahead of the 2019 season. In addition to his prospect pedigree, Sheffield was a headliner in multiple significant trades: the Yankees acquired him in the 2016 deadline trade that sent Andrew Miller to Cleveland before sending him to Seattle in the deal that brought James Paxton to the Bronx ahead of the 2019 campaign.
Unfortunately for both Sheffield and the Mariners, the dream of Sheffield anchoring the rotation for the next competitive team in Seattle was never realized. Sheffield struggled badly during the 2019 season, posting a 5.50 ERA with a 4.71 FIP in his first 36 innings with his new club. While he would see a stretch of success during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, with a solid 3.58 ERA and an excellent 3.17 FIP in ten starts, he was unable to carry that success over into the 2021 season. In 92 innings between 2021 and 2022, Sheffield struggled mightily to a 6.46 ERA, 37% below league average by measure of ERA+.
Those struggles led the Mariners to outright Sheffield to Triple-A during the offseason. Unfortunately, Sheffield’s struggles grew even deeper in the early going of the 2023 campaign. In 10 outings with Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma, the lefty surrendered 17 runs in just 8 1/3 innings while walking more batters (11) than he struck out (4). That lead the Mariners to pull the plug on their former top prospect at the end of April, releasing him to pursue opportunities in another organization.
Two weeks later, Sheffield has found a home in the Braves organization. Atlanta has seen its rotation ravaged by injuries in recent days, with both lefty Max Fried and right-hander Kyle Wright expected to miss significant time due to injury. That said, Sheffield figures to be below Michael Soroka, Dylan Dodd, and Jared Shuster on the organization depth chart at the very least, and has worked primarily out of the bullpen in recent years.
While Sheffield seems unlikely to provide the Braves useful rotation depth that can solve their current conundrum at the big league level, a minor league deal for a player with Sheffield’s prospect pedigree is rarely a bad decision, given the lack of risk associated with such a deal and the massive potential upside Sheffield showed as a youngster. While it would be a surprise to see Sheffield rebound to the heights he was expected to reach as a prospect, it’s certainly possible that a change of scenery from the organization Sheffield spent the past four seasons with will help him recapture some of the talent that made him such a tantalizing prospect earlier in his career.
Just us, Sheffield. Nobody else.
*crickets*
Crickets applauding…
Justus is definitely worth a shot. No reason why he can’t have some success as a bullpen piece.
agreed. in a middle relief role there’s a lot of upside
Don’t you mean Justus deserves a shot-us?
If he gets called up to the majors, he can live here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Us,_Atlanta
Classic case of an overhyped (overweight) yankee prospect who goes nowhere
Explain how he was overhyped.
I highly doubt you’ll get a response.
As a Mariners fan, I believe he was overhyped to start in Cleveland, stayed overhyped when he peaked at the top of Yankees prospect lists, and continued to be overhyped as a Mariners prospect.
I remember Fangraphs calling him a great athlete way back (as to more deeply research who the M’s were getting as a prospect to hopefully convince myself I should be happy with the return since I initially was not) and he was never that. The lack of athleticism made the stuff less explosive and he always had below-average control in the minors. His K rate was never *that* impressive in the minors and sure enough it didn’t translate to the bigs, probably partially due to the lack of athleticism. He wasn’t only overhyped as a Yankees prospect, but I think he was definitely overhyped. He never seemed like he truly had T.O.R. SP potential.
I remember reading when the Yankees got him that his ceiling was mid rotation and he never showed anything beyond that during his time with the Yankees.
Now if someone wants to talk about the other prospect the Yankees got with Sheffeild, it’s hard to argue that Jackson Frazier wasn’t overhyped.
That’s how
SUMMARY
Career
WAR -0.9
W12. L12
ERA 5.47
He was never over hyped by the Yankees, at best they thought he could be a #4 or a #5 in the rotation. Thinking he eventually can be for some ML team out there. I guess the bullpen for now.
Wonder why the Yanks thought they could get Goldy for Sheffield….
sny.tv/articles/yankees-were-pushing-justus-sheffi…
…and the Yankees “declined to make him available for the Orioles’ Manny Machado “
nypost.com/2018/07/15/how-yankees-stud-justus-shef…
“Yankees have declined to make him available for the Orioles’ Manny Machado and likely would deal him only for a controllable starting pitcher.”
From the article you linked. I noticed you cut your quote short to fit your narrative.
The Yankees traded him for a starting pitcher with a year of control. You did a poor job of showing how he was overhyped.
Hey Joe….first, I didn’t write anywhere that Sheffield was overhyped. I just wondered aloud why the Yankees thought he was worth Goldy and found it interesting he wasn’t available for Machado.
Here is a wonderful quote “Sheff was asked for a ton in every deal and we said no, because we see what the future can bring potentially,” Cashman told ESPN Radio’s The Michael Kay Show on August 2. “We love Sheffield. We don’t like him, we love him.”
bronxpinstripes.com/news-rumors/why-the-time-has-c…
Joe, I think more Yankee prospects are overhyped than any other organization, but not because the Yankees don’t evaluate well. To the contrary, I think Brian Cashman and Co are better than any other GM/front office at stirring the pot and getting other teams to believe their prospects are worth more than they really are.
Of course Cashman said he loves him. He was putting up respectable numbers and was being asked for in trade talks.
Even looking back I wouldn’t have traded him for Machado. Machado was a rental and that’s too much to pay for a rental.
I’m still not seeing anything overhyped in Sheffield’s time with the Yankees. I think Paxton was the correct return for him. It’s just disappointing how much Paxton stays injured.
@Wampum You’re quoting one person’s opinions from a blog site. The NY Post also isn’t that far behind. Do you never consider whether a source is credible? You’re right in that NYY are good with getting media to hype up prospects but I also don’t believe in everything I read.
Hey YBC, I try to avoid “never” and “always”…..usually neither pan out to be true, so to answer your question, sure source is important. But let’s face it, the “sources” leak lies as well as truths and the reporters repeat what they hear, so who really knows if any rumor is actually true……and isnt that the fun of rumors
@Wampum That’s a fair point.
By the actual Yankees org, sure. Yankees’ fans definitely touted him as better. But so did Mariners’ fans.
classic trendy overused comment abeilt uninformed as well. Drafted by CLEVELAND and was BA top 100 while in CLEVELAND’S farm system. TRADED to Yankees in 2016 and was still highly touted by BA before being traded to Mariners. educate yourself
ya he fetched them Pineda when the Pineda hype was real.
Pineda wasn’t hyped. Jesus Montero was. The Yankees got a serviceable pitcher back when the they gave up hope of being a catcher. The M’s bought Montero’s bat potential.
Pineda wasn’t hyped? He was a top 20 prospect in 2011.
Jesus Montero, he kind of resembled the catcher that fell rounding first base in Moneyball
now we’re talking some names.
both Jesus Montero and Shefield were overhyped.. just like every yankees prospect that gets traded
@myaccount2 The top 11th actually but I don’t put a lot of stock into rankings or the noise behind it.
Was that Scott Hatteberg or Jeremy Giambi?
Sheffield of dreams?
Dude’s got one of the straightest fastballs I’ve ever seen, and until he either sharpens his change up, or develops a split or something, I can’t see how he’s gonna make it against major leaguers.
The team that lost out on the Sheffield sweepstakes is Seattle. Cleveland got Miller in return for him and Yankees got Paxton. Everyone misses on prospects. You look at tools and this guy had them all. Never know which player will finally figure it out. There is no exact science or analytics for scouting.
Yep, it was a big time whiff by Dipoto. Swanson easily ended up being the better pitcher. If Teoscar can get settled, it won’t end up being *that* bad of a trade, although in hindsight, it’s easy to pick apart Sheffield’s game as a minor leaguer.
Sheffield was also Mariners 2nd best pitcher in 2020 where he actually pitched pretty well. So for 1 year of Paxton they got 1 good year of Sheffield, 2 years of solid relief pitching from Swanson, and turned that into starting RF. Thats not a terrible return for Paxton who was pretty good in 2019 but has pitched 22 innings since.
Sheffield’s peripherals were a nightmare in 2020. Everyone knew he got pretty lucky and was going to decline in 2021. I didn’t think he would decline to that extent, however.
@not, Paxton pitched one year for Yankees, Miller had 2 of 3 solid seasons for Indians. I think Indians fared better. However, I think Mariners fared well ‘preliminary’ as they used Swanson to get Teoscar from Toronto. Obviously he has been underwhelming, but still time to turn it around.
If he makes it to the majors, maybe Sheff’s Chefs will be reborn.
That 2003 Braves offense was incredible.
Honestly surprised the cards didn’t sign him. They need sp at memphis and probably with the big league club when they sell at or before the deadline
He will do just fine on the Braves. They know their pitching
Johnny Sheffield was the best actor to ever play “Boy” in the “Tarzan” series.
Of course he was also the worst.
All you need are solid starts. You don’t need the guy to be Greg Maddux
He’ll get shelled in a few starts that will bloat his ERA into the 5’s, but most of the time you’re getting 4 to 6 IP at 3 ER or less
ERA causes a lot of misconceptions about how bad these pitchers are
In the same way the Mets should be giving Butto regular starts. That’s the best way to get consistent “solid” starts
You dont want Peterson out there who varies so much game to game
This guy was just signed to hold a minor league rotation spot warm while the former occupant is up at the show.
Even the minor leaguers hit like Gary Sheffield and David Justice against this guy.
Shame on Brian Cashman. With a starting rotation held together by chewing gum and string, he passes on the chance to bring back his former top pitching prospects
Of course, his crack analytics team probably told him that Brito, Schmidt and Weber are better bets.
And Justice for Sheffield.
I don’t think they traded David Justice for him. Justice is 57 now.
The Braves can turn prospect busts and make them into something look at Matzek and Arcia.
Yeah and we all know the Mariners are horrible at developing pitching prospects.
Can’t really complain about this… Braves AAA is full of former highly ranked prospects, although it seems most are injured. Anderson, Allard, Sheffield, Soroka… if you would have taken a poll a few years ago of just these guys, you’d say the Braves are gonna have a great rotation ironically none of them are even featured at the moment of course injuries playing a big factor. Hope one of those 4 start putting it together and can help out. We are in need for sure
In 1987, a young lefty started his MLB career after a short stint in the minors, and he was pretty heavily “hyped” for what that’s worth. After 4 years in the MLB, he was 33-41 with an ERA in the mid 4 range. His K to BB ratio was less than 2 to 1. Looked like he had been over hyped too. That pitcher, Tom Glavine, finished his career, years later, with 305 wins, fixed his K to BB ratio, and just so happens to be in the Braves organization and can mentor another young “over hyped” lefty.
Don’t give up on Justus yet. I’ve seen him pitch since he was 11 yrs old in LL. He’s gotta learn how to pitch at this level. He couldn’t be in a better place. I wish him the best
When are the Braves going to stop putting Minter in games that are close?!?!?!? Jeez stop already!!!
Wouldn’t hurt to deal for a proven bullpen lefty, for sure.
Read AA saying earlier teams usually not willing to make many to any trades this early in the season will happen at or around all star break. Making moves like this just to try to find anything to help is worth a try. Maybe he can help in the pen. Bumgarner would be a low cost move to bring in with AZ having to eat his contract but really he hasn’t been good for about 4 years now.