Yankees’ Ben Grable named as injury replacement for All-Star Futures Game
Ben Grable is about to get his chance to step into the spotlight.
The less heralded Yankees prospect was picked as an injury replacement for Sunday’s All-Star Futures Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
The right-handed reliever will now be the Yankees’ lone representative in the exhibition contest, which features some of the best players in Minor League Baseball. Shortstop George Lombard Jr. and right-handed reliever Carlos Lagrange have both been ruled out with injuries.
Grable, 24, was the Yankees’ 11th-round draft pick in 2025 from the University of Indiana. He isn’t among the Yankees’ top-30 prospects on MLB Pipeline, but Baseball America has him ranked No. 16 in the organization.
This is his first year pitching in games in the farm system. He made only six appearances for High-A Hudson Valley before being quickly promoted to Double-A Somerset on April 27.
As of Friday morning, Grable is sporting a 2.61 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP with a whopping 49 strikeouts in 31 innings. While he has a 3.09 ERA for Somerset in 22 appearances, he has allowed only one earned run in his last 12 outings since the start of June.
The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder throws a mid-90s four-seam fastball that occasionally touches 99 mph, a tight gyro slider, and a splitter.
“They basically told me, ‘Throw a fastball ‘til the cows come home,’” Grable said with a laugh in May when recalling his work with the Yankees’ development staff in Tampa last summer after being drafted. “I was like, ‘All right, I can do that.’ I can throw it in the zone pretty good, getting some miss. So that was a big thing for me, just leaning on my weapon, especially being a one-inning guy. You can really lean on your strengths.”
Grable was mostly a starting pitcher at Indiana, but he almost exclusively came out of the bullpen in his first two college seasons at Northwestern in 2021 and 2023. He missed the 2022 and 2024 seasons with injuries.
“I will say, I look for that adrenaline. It’s something a little different,” Grable said in May. “I started games, loved starting games, loved doing all that, getting to throw a lot. But coming out of the pen, tight games, it’s a little different — a little different type of juice.”
