Yankees Jacob Lindgren to Undergo Tommy John Surgery

New York Yankees reliever Jacob Lindgren is scheduled for Tommy John surgery Friday after spending much of 2016 on the minor league disabled list.

Yankees minor league reliever Jacob Lindgren spent all season fighting the inevitable, but the news we all knew was coming finally was announced Wednesday. The 23-year-old lefty will require the dreaded Tommy John surgery, effectively ending his 2017 campaign before it even begins.

Things couldn’t have gone much worse for the Yankees 2014 second round pick this year. He was the first member of New York’s 40 man roster cut from major league camp after it became apparent he wasn’t fully recovered from surgery to remove a bone chip in his elbow.

He did manage to make six appearances for High-A Tampa, but the control issues that had plagued him in the spring only got worse. His run prevention was fine, but he walked nine batters over just seven innings, and added six wild pitches for good measure. Something was clearly not right.

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Lindgren threw a simulated game Saturday, but apparently his elbow issues just won’t go away. Yankees team doctor Christopher Ahmed will perform the procedure on Friday.

Needless to say, the news is a huge blow for a player who was expected to be a no-doubt elite bullpen arm by many after he was drafted. Lindgren made it to the big leagues less than a year after being drafted.

While his debut in the Bronx was a little rocky, he showed plenty of promise, striking out 27.6% of the batters he faced in seven MLB innings. His control has always been something of a wild card, but at 22 he had plenty of time to iron things out.

Missing 16-18 months of development time at such a crucial stage in his career is a major blow to his expectations, especially after already going through one lost season this year.

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The good news is that Lindgren has five more years of team control remaining after 2016. There will be plenty of time to get “The Strikeout Factory” right, it will just take some patience by Yankees fans.