Yankees Prospect Yostin Pena Is Already Turning Heads at Single-A Tampa

MLB teams' pipelines to the Dominican Republic are part of their foundations. Every roster in the league is populated by Latin American talent, whether homegrown or acquired via trade.

For a long time, the Yankees' strength in the player development department was their international scouting. Hotshot prospects like Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar, and Luis Severino, along with a score of others. made an impact throughout the system, were used in major trades, and contributed to the early years of the Aaron Judge era. Even Gleyber Torres, a Venezuelan native who was acquired in 2016 in the Aroldis Chapman trade, spent a good chunk of his development in the Yankees' system.

But the said development system has fallen on hard times. A team that is usually in contention for the top international signings every year, the Yankees have had an exceptionally low hit rate on their seven-figure signings of late, which says a lot in an extremely risky business of signing incredibly raw teenagers. This prompted the firing of international scouting director Danny Rowland this past offseason and torpedoed the team's most recent signing class.

The Yankees hired internally for Rowland's job and hope that Mario Garza can turn things around in that department, but before Garza's official appointment in January, there was one unheralded 17-year-old who put pen to paper who, less than a year later, could be the next super prospect in the Yankees' organization.

Yostin Pena's turbulent path to pinstripes

2025 was a weird year for Pena, a 6'4" teenager from Santo Domingo who was looking to join an MLB organization in the 2025-26 international signing period, which began on January 15. That day, he signed for $300,000 with the St. Louis Cardinals, a decently large sum in the grand scheme of things, but not blue-chip cash.

OF Dominicano Yostin Peña acordó con @Cardinals por $300,000#FirmasEnero15 pic.twitter.com/0bXtMNx8O0
— Antonio Puesán (@antoniopuesan) January 15, 2025

He wasn't the largest signing in the organization, with his signing bonus dwarfed by outfielder Royely Strop's $1.45 million, but he was one of seven players to get a signing bonus of at least $200,000. Regardless, a player signed on the day he's first eligible in January usually means he'll be on the field later that year for his professional debut, right?

Except he was nowhere to be found on the D.R.'s backfields that summer. Exactly 10 months later, in mid-November, after Rowland's dismissal and before Garza's promotion, his name popped up again, but this time in pinstripes.

IFA News 🎙️: Yankees sign 18 YO OF, Yostin Peña.

Credit: Naranjo Baseball#RepBx #Yankees pic.twitter.com/LNRNABoFBj
— YankeesFarm (@YankeesFarm) November 15, 2025

In the immediate aftermath of his signing, details emerged about why he suddenly vanished without a trace from the Cardinals' organization, with no record of his release. One Cardinals Twitter account reportedly pointed to an age-related issue, one that is considered extremely common in the international player market to increase signing bonuses, which could explain why Pena's deal was seemingly cancelled. It's been theorized that such a tactic was notably used by Albert Pujols.

It's unclear whether Pena's listed age on MiLB.com was his at signing, which St. Louis clearly disputed, or his confirmed one, but the action remained clear. Pena would instead be starting his professional career in the Yankees' system, signing for undoubtedly a lower amount than his initial $300,000, and with a department in flux and a change in scouting personnel.

Pena's historic DSL debut prompted unlikely promotion

With their recent international failures, there wasn't too much hype with the prospects down in the Dominican Republic playing in the Dominican Summer League, aside from seven-figure signing Mani Cedeno and returning stud Juan Torres (who finished said season hitting .385, for what it's worth), but Pena was among those under-the-radar bats who made a name for himself.

In 37 games to start his pro career, the 18-year-old slashed a ridiculous .375/.457/.646 with eight home runs, 57 RBIs, 27 stolen bases, and a strikeout rate of under 14 percent. He was in contention for a batting title midway through the season, was named a mid-season DSL All-Star while recording a two-run double in the All-Star Game, and was the most prolific run producer for the DSL Yankees.

His run production was so historic that it stacks up in DSL history, despite his sample being just over a month's worth of games. His full-season pace of 87 RBIs would've shattered the all-time DSL record (since 2006, when data is currently known) of 76. His 57 in an abbreviated season was already in the top 10, which should tell you how freakishly rare this is.

Why'd he only get 37 games? Just a week before the trade deadline, the Yankees made the bold decision to put Pena on a plane and bring him to the United States. Such a midseason move isn't totally uncommon, albeit rare, but this wasn't a DSL-to-FCL move. He was heading straight to Single-A Tampa.

Moves of this nature are nearly unprecedented, especially in this organization. The last Yankees prospect to completely skip the Florida-based rookie instructional league was Luis Medina in 2017, but his jump was significantly smaller. He leapt from the DSL to the Pulaski Yankees, a short-season Rookie Advanced affiliate that no longer exists due to the 2020 minor league retraction.

The gap between the Florida Complex League (FCL) and Single-A seems small, but is actually quite wide. Back in 2019, there were two levels between them with Rookie Advanced Pulaski and Low-A Staten Island, but both were eliminated in the previously mentioned retraction. This has led to a significantly higher rate of rookie ball stars who've fallen flat on their faces in Single-A, a move that hurts the organizations and every player involved who's scrapping for playing time.

The Yankees know this. They've seen several guys over the past half-decade struggle with that jump, so sending Pena directly from a league of 16- to 17-year-olds to a place where college pitchers get their feet wet showed tremendous trust, one that he has so far rewarded with sensational ability.

An exciting Single-A debut that puts Pena in rare territory

Pena has 14 games of Single-A experience entering Monday, but the results are quite exciting. In 66 plate appearances, he's slashing .349/.364/.603 with four home runs, 19 RBIs, and four stolen bases, good enough for a 143 wRC+ at a level he was aggressively pushed to. Here's a cool stat: his 76 total RBIs are the most by any player who's played fewer than 75 games this season. Pena's only played 51.

While it's not all perfect, particularly with his swing-happy approach, which leads to very few walks at a level where there seems to be one per inning, the Statcast data that we have at our disposal for the Florida State League shows everything you want to see in an 18-year-old prospect.

Yostin Pena's Single-A peripherals — Yostin Pena hits the ball hard. | @TJStats

His hard-hit ability is truly alien. His 90th-percentile exit velocities rival Spencer Jones' raw power. He has seven batted balls hit at least 108 mph, one of just three 18-year-olds to do this in Single-A since Statcast was expanded in 2021. A 113.6-mph single of his from last week is currently the second-hardest-hit batted ball by a player his age or younger (that we know of).

Now, he's still extremely far away and is playing at a level so distant that they play all of their games down in Florida, but his rise has been one of the bright spots in a tumultuous minor league season in the organization. He's got the helium to be a top-100 prospect in the very near future, and if he can maintain this level of damage without real contact concerns, he could truly be something special.

Oh yeah, did I mention he was signed by Scott Boras? Sounds pretty legit to me.

Get Yankees On SI straight to your inbox: sign up for our free newsletter here.

Add us as a preferred source on Google