Rosenthal: Yankees Unlikely To Promote Lindgren

The New York Yankees’ playoff hopes continue to shrink with each passing day. It finally appears this team has seen and done enough for 2014, and will limp into the off-season, another failed year finally coming to an end. Many around the team were excited about the possibility of seeing two of the Yankees’ top pitching prospects possibly getting promoted to the big club for a September look once rosters expanded to 40 on the 1st. The two pitchers in question were lefty reliever, Jacob Lindgren and Luis Severino.

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According to a report by Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and the MLB Network, at least one–“The Strikeout Factory” Lindgren, will not be making his initial appearance in the Bronx in 2014. One of the reasons is because Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman just brought in lefty Josh Outman from the Cleveland Indians. Lindgren was the Yankees second round pick in this past June’s MLB First Year Player Draft, and he has performed admirably: 48 Ks, a 0.79 ERA in only 24 games. The kid throws smoke. The other reasons according to Rosenthal, is that the Yankees want to limit his innings, as he is approaching 80 on the season between pro ball and his final season of college service at Mississippi State.

Perhaps the Yankees would never admit it, but why risk injuring one of the best minor league pitching prospects you have, for nothing more than a lost season of disappointment and underachievement? Rest assured, Lindgren WILL BE the lefty specialist out of the Yankees’ bullpen in 2015. As for Severino, he has had some arm issues over the past few weeks, and to promote a starting pitching over multiple levels, then throw him to the wolves at the big league level, could crush the confidence of a talented, and still developing ace-in-the-making.