We might not see The Strikeout Factory in the majors this season after all
The season is winding down and the Yankees' playoff chances are decreasing by the day, but at least we've still had tomorrow's roster expansion to look forward to, right? Maybe not so much anymore. A lot of Yankee fans have been anticipating Jacob Lindgren's promotion to the majors pretty much since he was drafted. Now it sounds like it might not happen this season, despite the roster expanding.
According to Ken Rosenthal, the Yankees picked up lefty reliever Josh Outman partially because they didn't want to have to promote Lindgren. There are two main concerns: the number of innings that he's already pitched, and them not wanting to remove someone from the 40-man roster. The 21-year-old has already thrown 80 innings this season between his time at Mississippi State, and the 25 that he's pitched in the farm system. The most innings that he's ever pitched previously was just 56 in 2013. Additionally, Lindgren does not need to be on the 40-man roster to be protected over the offseason, so the Yankees might want to just wait instead of making room for him. I guess if they are really concerned about Lindgren being overworked, then keeping Outman makes sense. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a major loss to remove Outman from the roster and replace him with Lindgren. It's not like Lindgren would need to pitch every game for the remainder of the season. If the Yankees are going to go down without putting up much of a fight, it seems like they should at least give a chance to some of the prospects who have been playing really well.
Lindgren has been fantastic this season, although he did finally have a rough outing yesterday (4 ER, 3 BB, 1 IBB through 0.1 IP). Even after that, he still has a 2.16 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 17.3 K/9, and 48 K's through just 25 IP. He hasn't allowed a single home run, either. While it's understandable that they do not want to overwork him considering that he's already passed his career-high in innings pitched, Lindgren not being promoted would be one less thing to look forward to for the remainder of the season. I can't help but wonder if this would have been a different story if Masahiro Tanaka hadn't had his setback, and if the playoffs weren't looking further and further out of reach.
Will you be disappointed if Lindgren isn't promoted this season or do you think that there isn't much of a point in promoting him if the team is out of playoff contention?