The Yankees’ pitching factory just produced one of its biggest success stories in years, and now one of the people who helped shape it is headed elsewhere.
Houston is hiring Spencer Medick, New York’s Triple-A pitching coach in 2026, as its new director of pitching, according to reports Tuesday. The move pulls Medick out of the Yankees’ player-development pipeline and into a broader leadership role with the Astros.
That matters in New York because the Yankees’ breakthrough on the mound this season wasn’t built only in the Bronx. It started on minor league fields, where pitchers were molded, refined and pushed toward the majors ready to matter. Cam Schlittler was the clearest example of that process working.
Schlittler closed 2026 with a 1.95 ERA, the lowest qualifying mark by a Yankees pitcher since Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978. His rise helped power a Yankees staff that finished with a major league-best 3.23 ERA, ahead of Milwaukee’s 3.51, even while injuries forced constant shuffling across the rotation.
For New York, that kind of internal development carried real weight. It wasn’t just about getting innings covered. It was about turning young arms into legitimate weapons.
Medick was part of that machine. He joined the Yankees in 2022 and moved through several stops in the system: Hudson Valley that year, the Florida Complex League in 2023, back to Hudson Valley in 2024, then Scranton/Wilkes-Barre as bullpen coach in 2025 before taking over as the RailRiders’ pitching coach this season.
Before arriving in the Yankees organization, Medick worked as a throwing trainer at Driveline Baseball from 2019 through 2021. That background fits the modern player-development world, where pitch design and individualized throwing programs have become central to how clubs build arms.
His work at Triple-A came with results. In 2026, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre ranked fourth in the International League in ERA and strikeouts per nine innings.
The strongest link between Medick and New York’s pitching breakout goes back to Hudson Valley in 2024. That season, Medick coached Schlittler when the right-hander was named South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Year. In 17 High-A starts, Schlittler went 6-4 with a 2.60 ERA and 108 strikeouts in 86 2/3 innings, and opponents hit .191 against him before he moved on to Double-A Somerset.
When Schlittler’s honor was announced in September 2024, Medick praised what he was seeing from the righty.
“He’s got an MLB fastball with a ton of pitchability,” Medick said in a Hudson Valley team release.
Hudson Valley’s numbers that season backed up the bigger picture. The Renegades posted a 3.25 staff ERA, best in High-A baseball, and recorded 19 shutouts.
Schlittler’s development didn’t stop there, of course, but Medick’s role came during a crucial stretch of the pitcher’s ascent. By 2026, Schlittler had become a top-of-the-rotation starter, giving the Yankees one of their clearest success stories from within the system.
The Astros’ decision also lands at an interesting moment for their own front office. Houston is coming off an 81-81 season and a wild-card sweep by the Chicago White Sox, and the organization has already seen major turnover with general manager Dana Brown and manager Joe Espada both gone.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are left with a different kind of problem: not finding pitchers, but keeping the people who help create them. Matt Blake remains central to the major league staff, but Medick’s departure hits the organizational layer that prepares prospects before they reach the Bronx.
Houston has retained major league pitching coach Josh Miller for 2027, so this reported hire should be viewed as a separate move within the club’s broader pitching structure. The director role carries wider responsibility, with a hand in guiding development philosophy and coordination across multiple levels, though Houston has not publicly outlined the exact scope.
For New York, the task now is replacing Medick at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and preserving the continuity that helped produce one of the franchise’s best pitching seasons in decades. The timing of the move, first circulating Tuesday, Oct. 20, only underscores how much attention the Yankees’ development work is drawing from around the league. As of Wednesday, the Yankees had not announced a successor.
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