Yankees' Garcia to make MLB debut Sunday

The stadium will be empty, but one of the Yankees' top pitching prospects will be making his Major League debut in the Subway Series.

The club has tabbed right-hander Deivi Garcia, its third-ranked prospect, to pitch one of the games in Sunday's doubleheader against the Mets, the Yankees confirmed Saturday.

The decision, according to general manager Brian Cashman, came down to Garcia or fellow right-hander Clarke Schmidt, who also would have been making his big league debut.

“You’re going to see, in theory, one of those players for tomorrow,” Cashman said before Saturday's 2-1 win over the Mets. “And maybe it’s ultimately both. It just depends on how things play out today. ... Ultimately, the dominoes will play a role in how we try to win today's game, which we could kick into whatever our current game plan is. But we are ready with an action plan that definitely one of those players are a part of for [Sunday]. And if we have to make adjustments, both players could play a role in that [Sunday]. So we'll see.”

The Yankees signed Garcia for $200,000 in 2015. He spent his first two professional seasons in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer and Gulf Coast leagues before arriving at Rookie-Advanced Pulaski by the end of 2017. MLB Pipeline's No. 100 overall prospect ascended to Trenton as a 19-year-old the following summer, posting a 2.55 ERA with 105 strikeouts and 20 walks over 74 frames across three levels.

Equipped with one of the best curveballs in the Minor Leagues, Garcia boosted his strikeout numbers last year, although his ERA also climbed. He averaged 13.3 punchouts per nine innings, a clip that would have ranked second in the Minors if he had enough innings to qualify. Across 40 innings at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the 2019 Organization All-Star posted a 5.40 ERA.

Cashman and the Yankees selected Schmidt with the 16th overall pick in the 2017 Draft, despite the fact that the University of South Carolina product underwent Tommy John surgery a month prior. New York's No. 2 prospect performed well over 23 1/3 innings the following summer before breaking out with a 3.47 ERA across three levels last year.

More than two-thirds of his 90 2/3 frames in 2019 were spent with Class A Advanced Tampa. Schmidt went 4-5 with a 3.84 ERA for the Tarpons, then shined even brighter in three-late season starts for Double-A Trenton. The 24-year-old won two of them and posted a 2.37 ERA, 19 strikeouts and a walk over 19 Eastern League innings to close out the regular season before two strong playoff appearances for the Thunder.