Yankees' Cam Schlittler working on adding sixth pitch to repertoire

Coming off a highly successful rookie campaign, Yankees pitcher Cam Schlitter is looking to become even more dangerous – working on adding a sixth pitch to his repertoire, he said Wednesday.

Speaking on the season premiere of Yankees Hot Stove on YES Network, Schlittler, whose fastball touches triple digits, said he’s beginning to work on adding either a changeup or a splitter. In addition to the four-seamer, Schlittler throws a cutter, curveball, sinker and sweeper.

“(I’m) probably leaning toward a changeup, (which) might be easier for me,” Schlittler told analysts Bob Lorenz, Jack Curry and Michael Kay. “I think that’s an important pitch to include just because I didn’t have that option down to lefties or even to righties as well. For me, I started throwing three weeks ago, trying to be very calm with it but trying to mess with the grips a little bit … I’ll go down there in Tampa in three weeks and we’ll start to really work on it a little bit more and put a lot of focus onto it going into spring training.”

The 24-year-old righty had a 2.96 ERA over 14 starts in his rookie season, helping to stabilize a rotation that had lost Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt. He pitched in two playoff games, blanking the Red Sox in a clinching Game 3 of the Wild Card Series and striking out 12 – the most in a postseason game for a rookie in franchise history.

Schlittler added that he’s working on maintaining his weight and sticking to his offseason regimen; he also wasn’t concerned about deviating from his strengths by noodling with the new pitch.

“I think at the end of the day, obviously I throw hard, have a good fastball, good variations of fastballs where that’s still my strength,” he said. “I just think there’ll be certain situations where a changeup, splitter, whatever it is is going to help me neutralize some counts when I get deep into it.”

Schlittler stands to factor heavily into a strong rotation that will nonetheless have to withstand delayed season debuts from Cole, recovering from Tommy John surgery, and Carlos Rodon, who had surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow. Clarke Schmidt also underwent Tommy John and could return in the second half.

Beyond that, it’s Max Fried, Schlittler and Luis Gil, with possible contributions from Will Warren and anyone else general manager Brian Cashman decides to sign this offseason.

“It’s very hard to get to the big leagues,” said Schlittler, who started last season with Double-A Somerset. “It’s very hard to stay there and with the Yankees, it’s a little bit even harder with how (many) experienced players and talent they have so for a younger guy to get called up, get the opportunity to be able to step up the rest of the year, obviously, as a minor leaguer in the system, that’s the dream.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.