For the second consecutive week, a pitcher in the Diamondbacks organization will win Texas League Player of the Week. Pitching prospect Yilber Diaz receives the honors for the week of April 29-May 5. Pitching on May 2, Diaz dominated Midland in seven scoreless innings, allowing just two hits, no walks, and striking out 11.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Yilber Diaz pitched a career-high of 11 strikeouts during Thursday’s game to earn him @MiLB Texas League Pitcher of the Week 🔥 pic.twitter.com/O3npbsXYO2
— Amarillo Sod Poodles (@sodpoodles) May 6, 2024
The Diamondbacks signed Yilber Diaz as a 20-year-old out of Venezuela in February 2021. He’s made steady progress through the system as a starting pitcher, pitching in Visalia in 2022, Hillsboro in 2023, and Amarillo in 2024. He projects to arrive to Arizona during the 2025 season.
In five starts in 2024, Diaz is 1-3 with a 3.96 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 25 innings. He’s holding opposing hitters to a .221 average and a .655 OPS, which is impressive considering that his home ballpark of Hodgetown heavily inflates offense.
Diaz can be a particularly tough pitcher to face, especially on nights he has a good feel to command his stuff. His arsenal features a fastball that sits 94-98 MPH with a lot of carry and two “plus” quality breaking balls in his curveball and slider. In terms of raw stuff, he may have the nastiest arsenal in the entire organization, ahead of some pretty talented pitchers such as Slade Cecconi and Justin Martinez.
The command isn’t consistent enough for him to stick as a starter, with 12 walks already on the season, but one consistent theme in his career has been his ability to miss bats. Since the start of the 2022 season, Yilber Diaz has struck out 32% of the batters he’s faced, and no lower than 30% in any of those three seasons. For 2024 alone, that figure has jumped to 39%. Having an arm that can miss bats like that profiles well for a bullpen role, should the command not improve enough for him to stick as a starter.
*Get the BEST Phoenix sports insider information, exclusive content, and access to our seasonal magazines! SIGN UP HERE to unlock our premium content!*
Michael McDermott is the lead writer covering the Arizona Diamondbacks for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
