Carlos Lagrange's return from IL is putting pressure on Yankees front office

While Clint Frazier may be the eternally iconic Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRider, Carlos Lagrange certainly made an argument to join him on the pedestal this week.

Lagrange exited stage right this season at the exact wrong time. The Yankees' second-half bullpen workload maintenance strategy relied on some combination of his promotion, the healthy returns of Clarke Schmidt and Carlos Rodón/Gerrit Cole to force the Yankees' rotation members into the middle innings, and a trade deadline addition. The deadline prices were, uh, not to Brian Cashman's liking (we're being nice!), the rotation never seemed to stay together long enough as a six-person group to make that shuffle viable, and Lagrange's injury hit at a real load-bearing time for these tired Yanks.

Basically everything hit the fan in late June and continued hitting the fan through the All-Star break (Nationals series excluded). Lagrange's barking shoulder was the cherry on top of a pile of street garbage; he hit the IL on July 6, just inside one month until the trade deadline.

Everytime the Yankees spoke about him publicly between that point and the start of September, they refused to betray an ounce of optimism. You can only say, "It'd be difficult for him to impact the MLB roster" so many times. And it was obvious that was true - in a best-case scenario, he'd probably be returning to action a few days before the end of the minor-league season. How often do Yankees injuries meet their best-case scenarios?

Lagrange making his return to the mound in his MLB debut seemed insane to even consider in a hypothetical, so we all dropped it mentally. And then something weird happened. Lagrange hit his marks. He came back somewhat quietly, but returned to the minors this week. He threw 102 from the rip, inducing three whiffs on nine total swings in a scoreless frame, catching an opponent looking with his slider.

Look ... we know they wouldn't ... but ... what would it have to look like for them to have to think about it? It would kinda have to look like this, wouldn't it?

Carlos Lagrange's return to the mound gives the Yankees one final decision to make

The Yankees elevated Clarke Schmidt to the bigs this week in Minnesota, and he struck out a pair and allowed two looping singles in the four batters he faced. He did put away two batters with sliders, but didn't exactly show off a clear finish pitch, nor did his stuff tick up in a shortened stint, without the requirement to fight through 100+ pitches. He's a solid arm, but he's not a particularly fearsome reliever.

Ryan Weathers is throwing again, but has only 10 games to return to big-league action. Fans should be very grateful for what he's already given them this season, but it's hard to envision him coming in cold in October, either.

So what's crazier? Weathers pulling a Nestor Cortes Jr. or Lagrange finishing the season strong in Scranton and entering the playoffs as a complete flamethrowing wild card? Would you rather have his high octane or Schmidt's starter stuff in the middle innings?

Objectively, we're asking for the Yankees to get very bold here. But Lagrange wasn't even supposed to be an option. Now that he's made himself into one and his shoulder has cooperated, the Yankees have to at least give him a look.

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