A family affair in the 2026 MLB Draft: with their eighth-round pick, the Yankees selected Luke Pettitte, the third son of Andy.
Luke, who turned 21, was drafted as a two-way player out of Dallas Baptist; he is considered to have some of the best command of pitchers in the class, but Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2025 knocked out any chance he had of pitching in 2026.
Undeterred, Luke switched to DH’ing this season while rehabbing a la Shohei Ohtani, and he slashed .337/.403/.693 with 16 homers and 48 RBI in 166 at-bats over 42 games.
And as Andy told Sam Blum of The Athletic in a story posted Sunday, that has made the youngest Pettitte rethink his future, which looked very bright on the mound in the 11 1/3 scoreless innings he threw for Dallas Baptist before the surgery in 2025.
“If you would have asked him about (hitting professionally) six months ago, he would tell you, ‘No, I just want to pitch,’” said Andy Pettittel. “But I think he’s gotten a lot of confidence in what he was able to do with the bat. We’ll see how it all plays out, but I think that he would love to have the opportunity to see where that goes.”
Luke Pettitte planned on playing first base at Dallas Baptist before switching full-time to pitching, so that possibility is there – as is the possibility that he could finally be the one to carry the Pettitte legacy to the majors for another generation.
Josh Pettitte, the oldest of the three sons, was a 37th-round pick of the Yankees out of high school in 2013, but chose to go to Rice instead of signing, and ended up pitching just one season with the Owls before injuries derailed his career.
The middle son, Jared, went undrafted after pitching at Houston and Dallas Baptist, but signed with the Marlins as a UDFA in 2021 and pitched two seasons in the low minors.
