The Yankees have opened the 2007 season with five rookies on the roster, but the team is not exactly one you would call young. Of the five rookies, one is a backup catcher who turns 30 this year (Wil Nieves), and another (Kevin Thompson), who has spent seven seasons in the Yankees farm system, is only in the big leagues because of Hideki Matsui’s balky hamstring. The others are Darrell Rasner, who maintains a tenuous hold on the fifth starter job, and Sean Henn, one of the last arms out of the pen. Left-hander Kei Igawa, a veteran of the Japanese League, is a rookie by technicality only.

So generally speaking, the Yankees are not depending on an injection of young talent to return them to the playoffs for a 13th consecutive season. However, there is a significant amount of young talent at their new Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre that is awfully close to being ready, should the need arise. The overwhelming strength of the Yankees’ Triple-A squad is in the pitching staff, which is one of the best in the minors. Here are four arms that could be wearing pinstripes as the season wears on, and making a difference:

PHILIP HUGHES: By now, even the most casual Yankees fan knows Hughes by name, since the hype machine for him as been in full swing for more than a year. The best pitching prospect in baseball is the total package: a right-hander with a nearly ideal power pitcher’s body at 6-foot-5-inches and 220 pounds. Hughes boasts outstanding stuff — including a fastball that gets into the mid-90s and a curve that’s unhittable when he’s on — combined with command, control, and an understanding of the game normally reserved for 15-year veterans.

Although Hughes is still more than two months away from his 21st birthday, he has nothing left to prove in the minors and would already have been drafted into the big leagues with nearly any of the other 29 franchises in baseball. The hype for him is well deserved, but the Yankees have been, and remain, exceedingly cautious with him — in his first start of the year he was pulled after just 74 pitches. As to when he’ll arrive in the big leagues, that’s anybody’s guess, since it hinges on either of the two I’s, injury or ineffectiveness, to rear its ugly head in the Yankee rotation. The good news for Hughes is that the rotation isn’t especially deep, and it has its share of gray hairs as well. Hughes’s timetable (and talent) should have him up by the All-Star break at the least, and his performance could be the key to another American League East title being brought to the Bronx.

TYLER CLIPPARD: As good as Hughes is, it’s Clippard who led the organization in strikeouts last year, with 175 in 166.1 innings for Double-A Trenton. He was dominant down the stretch last season, posting a 1.91 ERA in his final 12 starts for the Thunder. Unlike Hughes, who has the enviable combination of stats and stuff, Clippard only has the stats. He’s the classic example of a minor league overperformer. His fastball only sits in the upper 80s, but his curveball and change-up are both highly effective offerings. These types of pitchers are often referred to by the scouting community as “backwards pitchers,” because of their inability to set up hitters off of their fastball, and there is a long history of this kind of starter putting up big numbers in the minor leagues, only to struggle when reaching the show. Not that Clippard isn’t a prospect — he’s simply not the prospect that his numbers would suggest. He’s likely to become a back-ofthe-rotation innings-eater, but he’s unlikely to see anything more than a September cup of coffee this year.

ROSS OHLENDORF: One of three players on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre team acquired from Arizona in the Randy Johnson deal, Ohlendorf is the one closest to the majors. A hulking presence on the mound at 6-foot-4-inches and nearly 240 pounds, Ohlendorf lives off a low-90s sinker that opposing batters pound into the ground when they make contact at all.

His change-up is his second-best pitch, and like most top Yankee pitching prospects (and unlike most other pitching prospects), he’s a strike-throwing machine. He played his college ball at Princeton, and approaches the game with maturity and intelligence. He could provide the most immediate value to the Yankees after Hughes because of his ability to start or relieve and because he’s an almost finished product ready to contribute.

COLTER BEAN: Bean is a bit of a wild card, but one that manager Joe Torre has proved to be highly uncomfortable with playing. Hardly a classic prospect, Bean is 30 and entering his eighth year in the Yankees system. At 6-foot-6-inches, he looks down on Hughes and Ohlendorf, and his listed weight of 255 pounds is a bit kind, to be sure. Yet he’s anything but what one would expect from a player of his size — his fastball is well below average when measured on velocity alone, but it gives opposing batters fits. Bean is a sidearmer, and with his wingspan, the ball almost starts behind right-handed hitters when it leaves his hand. So, he’s a trick pitcher, but it’s a pretty good trick.

In four years pitching at Columbus, Bean has posted a 2.69 ERA in 215 games and struck out 377 batters in 311.1 innings. That’s dominant by any measure, but it’s clear the Yankees don’t trust him, and that has been the approach most organizations have taken towards sidearmers, particularly those from the right side, because the same release point that makes them so deadly against righthanded hitters leaves them highly vulnerable to hitters from the other side.

Despite pitching so well, Bean has received only a pair of brief call-ups, pitching in a total of three games in the majors. Time is clearly running out for him, but with pitching staffs growing to the point where 11 or 12 is the norm, more teams are now comfortable with having a right-handed specialist on their staffs. Once considered a luxury, everything changed last year when the Twins gave their own homegrown righty sidearmer, Pat Neshek, a shot; he played a huge part out of the pen in their second-half playoff push. The Mets have continued the trend by breaking camp with a 2006 draftee, fellow righty sidearmer Joe Smith. Bean needs to be used in the right situations, and bullpen management has become one of Joe Torre’s few glaring weak points. Bean deserves a real chance to prove he can be used in clutch situations.

Once the only embarrassing part of the organization, the Yankee farm system is once again a source of pride in the Bronx. Beyond the Triple-A squad lies another group of highly regarded pitchers, including 2006 draftees Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy, as well as a compelling collection of highceiling Latin American talent, highlighted by young outfielder Jose Tabata. If the Yankees don’t spend the same money in future free agent markets that they have in the past, it will be because they don’t need to.

Mr. Goldstein is a writer for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art commentary, visit baseballprospectus.com.