MOOSIC, Pa. — Pencil in Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes to the 2024 rotation. Probably Clarke Schmidt, too, though the young righty will warrant a close watch a year after he smashed his career high in innings pitched. Carlos Rodon will return, though after this year, his effectiveness is no sure thing. Beyond that, the Yankees will have incumbent options such as Michael King, Randy Vasquez, Jhony Brito and perhaps Luis Gil.

How badly do the Yankees need another starter or two this offseason? Such a question hinges on pitchers such as Will Warren.

The Yankees’ No. 10 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, is putting the finishing touches on a second strong minor league season, this one likely ending one call away from The Bronx.

Warren and teammate Clayton Beeter represent the high-end prospects closest to cracking into a major league rotation. Warren has risen through the system, but the club has not yet needed another starter and Warren does not have to be protected from the Rule 5 draft this offseason, which makes a 40-man roster spot (and a debut) harder to find.

The 24-year-old is showing with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, though, that he is beginning to master the highest level of minor league baseball and could become a part of the Yankees’ plans soon.

“You’re one step away,” Warren said this week from SWB’s home at PNC Field. “I’m just trying to stack good starts on good starts and make [the Yankees] make a hard decision.”

After Warren had a rough start to his Triple-A season, that decision is growing more difficult.

Warren was an eighth-round pick from Southeastern Louisiana in 2021 who might as well be an avatar for the Yankees’ pitching development pipeline. Tinkering with his mid-90s, two-seam fastball and a slider that became a go-to sweeper helped him sail through High-A Hudson Valley and perform at Double-A Somerset last year.

This year, he continued the gains and made short work of Somerset before a mid-May promotion to SWB. Conquering the final level before a major league debut has been a work in progress.

Six starts into his RailRiders career, Warren sported a 6.29 ERA. There are plenty of variables at the Triple-A level that disrupt ascending prospects, even beyond the improved competition.

Pitchers are not fans of the Automatic Ball-Strike system, which is a bit smaller than the major league strike zone. SWB pitching coach Graham Johnson said the shorter zone has led to hitters becoming more “passive” at the plate, and an out pitch that slides out of the strike zone, such as Warren’s sweeper, does not draw as many chases.

“[Triple-A hitters are] very good at finding your mistake and not missing it. I think that was the biggest difference early,” Warren said. “You could see that with ABS — they’re trying to pull you into the middle so they can do damage.

“Not being too fine and nibbling on the corners, and trusting my stuff’s better than the guy in the box, I think that’s been the biggest difference [the last] couple of weeks.”

He has had to throw more strikes and rely more on his entire arsenal, which also includes a four-seamer, curveball and changeup.

When chases and strikeouts have not been there, he has learned to keep batted balls headed south. Of 76 International League pitchers who entered Thursday with at least 70 innings pitched, Warren’s 52.5 percent groundball rate was sixth-highest.

“I do think I’ve seen some growth in some other pitches [beyond the sweeper],” Johnson said. “The two-seam specifically, being able to use both sides of the plate versus the righties, mixing that in a little bit more versus the lefties now kind of gives him another avenue to work off of his changeup and then also kind of protects his four-seam at the same time.

“I think you just see the overall attack — he’s kind of figuring out how to put the pieces of it together.”

Warren is learning. After holding Buffalo to one run in 5 ⅔ innings Tuesday, his Triple-A ERA is down to 3.91. He smiled and said his mother would be happy it’s below 4 “because that’s the only stat that she knows.” She will be even happier that his ERA is 2.36 in his past eight starts.

“He’s becoming a big-league pitcher,” manager Shelley Duncan said. “The ones that have two different fastballs, they get that in hitters’ heads along with that elite wipeout pitch [in the sweeper].

“You add in the arsenal that Will has, it’s going to make him a really tough pitcher when he starts to really master command and everything comes together. That’s going to happen.”

How quickly is he becoming a big-league pitcher? Can he be an option to break spring training with a team that likely will be without Luis Severino and who knows who else in the rotation?

Warren watched Sam Houston State’s Hayden Wesneski, another Yankees pitcher from the Southland Conference, move quickly. Wesneski drew trade-deadline interest last year, was shipped to the Cubs and made his major league debut soon afterward. Warren had been hoping to follow that path, albeit without the trade, and find his way to the majors this season.

A Triple-A rough patch followed, but one that he has appeared to have navigated successfully.

“I definitely had aspirations to be in the bigs,” Warren said, “but if it’s not this year, it’s next year.”

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If you don’t believe in Edgar Barclay — a lefty who is rising through the Yankees’ system more with deception than dominant stuff — you wouldn’t be the first to doubt him.

The Hawaiian was desperate to keep his baseball dream alive, even if his options were telling him to quit.

His best option out of high school was a junior college — Central Arizona College — that had a coach who serendipitously saw him throw in a California tournament. Barclay spent his sophomore year at another juco, GateWay Community College, where he unsuccessfully tried to speed up the 83-85 mph fastball that was keeping him off of scouts’ radars.

He then took a year off to get his body into better shape and to muscle up in hopes the velocity would come.

“[Cal State] Bakersfield coach came and saw me throw a bullpen [session],” Barclay said this week, “and I was up to 90 [mph].”

It might not be enough by itself to cruise by college hitters, but it boosted a repertoire that enabled Barclay to take off. In 2019, his lone season in Bakersfield, he posted a 3.69 ERA with 111 strikeouts and just 28 walks in 90 ⅓ innings, which made the long shot, who had been out of college altogether a year earlier, a 15th-round pick of the Yankees.

Velocity remains an issue for the 25-year-old, but Barclay has found ways to get batters out by being different.

At 5-foot-10 and with a lower release point than most, Barclay’s stuff “does seem to give guys fits,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we’ve got it all figured out as to exactly why his 88-to-92 [mph] plays better than some guys’ 95-to-96 [mph], but I definitely think he’s one of those guys.

“He finds a way to make the sum equal more than the individual parts.”

The parts are a fastball that now lives in the low 90s, but has good ride and deception. It tunnels well with his best pitch, a changeup, which looks just like the fastball, but comes with brakes. The southpaw also mixes in a slider.

Barclay has bounced between roles with the Yankees. He was converted from a multi-inning reliever into a starter this season, which might stick. Barclay dominated Double-A Somerset competition, posting a 1.32 ERA in 34 innings, before reaching Triple-A in early August and finding similar struggles as Warren encountered.

Perhaps those struggles, too, are being traversed. Barclay’s latest outing was his best: He struck out eight in five innings of one-run ball in Columbus on Sunday.

The easiest comparison to Barclay is Cortes, another lefty with some funk and without overpowering velocity. But Cortes messes with his windup and arm slots more often than Barclay, who is more straightforward in using his changeup most often to retire hitters.

“At some point somebody’s going to start asking the question: Why aren’t we giving this guy a shot?” Johnson said. “And then it’s going to be up to him. Once that door gets cracked, can he kick it all the way open?”

Asked which Yankees prospect has not received enough attention, both Duncan and Johnson pointed at another starting pitcher.

Mitch Spence’s stats do not jump off the page, but few pitchers’ numbers do in what has become a hitter-friendly league. The righty’s 4.56 ERA was 16th-best among the 59 International League pitchers who had made at least 15 starts entering Thursday.

The righty has been a workhorse for the RailRiders with 144 strikeouts and 47 walks in 150 innings.

The 25-year-old has a deep pitch mix led by a mid-90s fastball with “natural cut,” said Duncan, who predicted Spence will be a major leaguer.

“Mitch Spence is a guy who should be on more people’s radar,” Johnson added.