2025 Fort Wayne TinCaps Pitcher of the Year

Summary

It was a tough season in the Summit City. The TinCaps finished the season 36 games back of first place, finishing 56-75. The pitching staff finished in the bottom half of the league in ERA (4.50), strikeouts (1105), WHIP (1.45), and batting average against (.252).

While the pitching staff struggled to find consistency overall, they had plenty of bright spots. The system’s breakout prospect, Miguel Mendez, consistently hit triple digits from the mound well into his starts, while Garrett Hawkins set a Midwest League record for consecutive scoreless innings.

First-year TinCaps manager Lukas Ray was coming off a lead role in leading the Storm to the California League Championship Series in 2024, but could not replicate the same success with the TinCaps. Ray has been a manager in the Padres system since 2021.

Overview

Our approach to eligibility remains straightforward. Players are considered at whichever affiliate they logged the most service time. We recognize the top contributor to this year’s team as the top player, while the top prospect is based on our expectations based on his production, age, projectability, and potential impact in the major leagues.

Level

The elimination of short-season leagues has led to a significant decline in the quality of play at Single-A, as extremely raw prospects receive on-the-spot development. This has made the jump from Single-A to High-A an even bigger jump than before, to the point that some evaluators now consider it the biggest in minor league ball. You will often find a player crush Single-A, and then struggle mightily in High-A.

Pitcher of the Year

Garrett Hawkins (Ben Davey, David Jay)
Exactly 23 months to the day after Hawkins walked off the mound with a serious elbow injury that ultimately required Tommy John surgery, Hawkins made his triumphant return. As the Padres do with nearly every returning prospects, Hawkins was limited in the number of innings he could throw and sent to the pen.  Hawkins gave up multiple runs in three of his first six outings and had a 6.75 ERA on April 23. Those were the last runs he would allow in High-A.

Hawkins set a Midwest League record by throwing 34 straight scoreless innings, a span that stretched from April 27 until his promotion to Double-A on August 1. During those 34 scoreless innings, he allowed 10 hits, walked five, and struck out 46. That is 0.44 WHIP and a 12.18 K/9.  Hawkins finished his time at Fort Wayne with a 1.43 ERA, with a 37% strikeout rate across 44 innings.

After sitting in the lo-90s pre-surgery, Hawkins has reached 98 mph as a reliever, while showing a wipeout low-80s sweeper. While he was a wildcard coming into the year, the fantastic success he had out of the bullpen as a 25-year-old has cemented his chances to reach the big leagues in the bullpen.

Miguel Mendez (John Conniff, Clark Fahrenthold)
A year ago, Miguel Mendez was a relatively unknown prospect. The then-22-year-old had spent two years in Lake Elsinore, where he walked over 14% of the batters he faced in 136 innings.

Enter 2025. After a minor ankle injury slowed his spring progression enough that he got underway slowly and returned to Lake Elsinore to build up to a full starter’s workload, he was promoted to Fort Wayne, where he cemented himself as one of the top pitching prospects in the organization. Mendez went 7-3 with a 1.32 ERA over 12 starts for Fort Wayne. Batters hit .180 off of him, and struck out 28.6% of the time. Even more impressively, he showed the ability to throw all of his pitches for strikes and cut his walk rate to a much more manageable 9.8% in High-A.

Despite a very slight frame, Mendez gets great extension and has some of the best arm speed in the organization, helping him hit triple digits with a fastball that sits 96-97 mph. He has good movement on both his fastball and an upper-80s slider, which leads to a lot of swing-and-misses.

Others Receiving Votes

Eric Yost (Kevin Charity)
As exceptional as both Mendez and Hawkins were, Yost was the club’s most consistent starter for much of the season. The righty led the team with 87 strikeouts, nearly 23% more than any other pitcher on the team. The 22-year-old finished his run with the TinCaps with a stellar 2.89 ERA, allowing only four home runs over his 17 starts. He averaged more innings per start than any other TinCaps pitcher, showing the ability to carry a starter’s workload. In May, he averaged over six innings per start while posting a 1.76 ERA.

Yost’s fastball sits in the low 90s, but he can crank it up to 95-96 mph when needed. His high-spin curveball has been his strikeout pitch throughout his entire career. The biggest difference between Yost’s 4.70 ERA in 2024 and his 2.83 mark across two levels this year was adding a sweeper in the offseason.  Having both an outstanding curve and a sweeper in his arsenal led to batters hitting .222 off of him in High-A.

Top Pitching Prospect

Miguel Mendez (Kevin Charity, Ben Davey, Clark Fahrenthold, David Jay)

After his breakout 2025 campaign, Mendez will be an easy top 10 prospect in the Padres system. If he can continue to improve on his command, Mendez has the chance to emerge as a viable big league starting pitcher. Mendez, 23, will be Rule 5 eligible this winter and is a lock to be added to the Padres’ 40-player roster.

Garrett Hawkins (John Conniff)

Hawkins continued his success in Double-A, posting a 1.69 ERA over 16 innings while keeping his strikeout rate above 30%. Another obvious choice to be added to the 40-player roster, Hawkins will have a chance to crack the Padres staff at some point in 2026.

Others of Note

Working in a long relief role, Fernando Sanchez had his best career year as the 25-year-old lefty posted a 2.14 ERA over 63 innings. During six weeks mid-season, Sanchez allowed two earned runs over 18.2 innings, striking out 14. While his ERA skyrocketed in two short stints with San Antonio, his FIP and xFIP there were actually significantly better. … Clark Candiotti was limited to just 48.1 innings in his first full season in the Padres system. The 25-year-old righty, an underslot fourth-round pick in 2024 after an itinerant collegiate career, the second-generation pitcher generated plenty of swing-and-miss with a 28.9% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, when opponents made contact, hit it hard, posting an .800 OPS as he surrendered a 5.77 ERA. … Despite missing a month on the IL, Harry Gustin had a 2.36 ERA over 49.2 innings in Fort Wayne, working primarily as a multi-inning reliever. The lefty had a 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 29.9% strikeout rate while holding Midwest League opponents to a .197 average. The organization will have an interesting decision about whether to give him a shot to start or leave him in the bullpen where he could move quickly. … Heading into the year, Isaiah Lowe ranked among the organization’s top starters, but the wheels came off for the 22-year-old in 2025. The righty, who had shown above-average feel for multiple pitches in his first fully healthy campaign in 2024, lost feel and saw his fastball go backward as he posted a 5.69 ERA in 91.2 innings. While he did manage to post every week through the season, the 2023 draftee’s year can’t be considered anything other than a disappointment. He’ll look to rebound in 2026.

You can view all our level wrap-ups here as they are published.