If Johnny Barbato Keeps Pitching This Way…

It’s only mid-April and the New York Yankees bullpen has already been on a roller coaster ride this season. The team’s biggest strength took a hit this winter with the trade of Adam Warren only to receive Aroldis Chapman from the Cincinnati Reds back in a trade. The strength of the bullpen took another hit when Justin Wilson was traded only to see Luis Cessa, at least in spring training, pitch well and lock down a bullpen slot out of spring training. The team thought they had Adam Warren replaced when Bryan Mitchell won a spot in the bullpen out of spring training as a reliever that could start only to take another hit when Mitchell injured his toe and learned he would miss four months of the season at least to fix it after undergoing surgery. The Yankees bullpen was handed another bad card when Nick Rumbelow announced that he needed ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery, better known as Tommy John surgery, but you know what? If Johnny Barbato keeps pitching the way he has I don’t think any of it is going to matter.

The Yankees already have a strong bullpen with Andrew Miller closing out games and Dellin Betances setting up games in the 8^th inning and that core only got better when, albeit in a small sample size again, Chasen Shreve remembered how to get Major League caliber hitters out with his splitter. The Yankees have weathered the storm through seven games now and in another month they get their eventual closer back in Chapman after the lefty got suspended for 30 games due to an altercation this winter but New York may have also found another great arm in Barbato.

The theme of this post, like most posts similar to this in the early parts of the MLB season, is going to be sample size. Stats regress or improve and over 162 games you usually have a much clearer picture than you do after two weeks of the season but you have to crawl before you can walk so stick with me. Barbato, already deemed the Yankees “secret weapon” by that guy that has me blocked because I broke a story before him and wanted some accountability at the New York Post, has pitched extremely well not only this spring but it has carried over into the regular season as well. Barbato seems to be quickly earning his keep and working his way into the Joe Girardi Circle of Trust, trademark pending, this season giving the Yankees another strong 6^th or 7^th inning option out of the pen.

The Yankees pen, as patchwork as it has become in the early portions of this regular season, is still a strength and it’s only going to get better as long as everyone keeps pitching the way that they’re supposed to. When Chapman returns and when the Yankees find the confidence to bring up a Jacob Lindgren or a James Pazos again this pen has all the makings of being unhittable and downright unfair. Hate us now, we live for this. 

Most Popular Article of the Week: Jacob Lindgren the Forgotten One

Major League Baseball is a thankless job, isn’t it? It’s almost like parenting, you work your tail off and you’re still expected to do a little more. Give a little more. Do a little better. It’s a large weight to carry on your shoulders every day but like parents MLB ball players do it. Again, much like parenting, there are times that you succeed but the first time you fail it’s all washed away. I said all that to bring to light exactly what is happening right now to a Yankees prospect, a Yankees prospect that is being severely overlooked this offseason. Jacob Lindgren.


Lindgren was taken with the first pick the Yankees had in the 2014 MLB Draft and was expected to move through the Yankees system rather quickly. Lindgren made his MLB debut early on in 2015 but an elbow injury derailed the beginning of his MLB career. Lindgren has bone spurs removed from his left elbow and missed the remainder of the 2015 season with surgery. While in the majors Lindgren did well and seemed to be slipping his way into Joe Girardi’s Circle of Trust but now it seems like no one remembers the name or mentions him anymore. Jacob Lindgren, the forgotten one.


Lindgren was not listed on either of Baseball America’s or Baseball Prospectus’s Top Yankees prospects list, although he did make my personal list, and was not listed in the Top 10 on MLB.com’s Pipeline list of prospects either. Lindgren is not being mentioned anywhere but here on The Greedy Pinstripes and that may be a good thing for him.


Lindgren went into the 2015 season with high hopes and expectations, entering the 2016 season he is the forgotten one. That’s a lot of weight off his shoulder and his left elbow and that may allow Lindgren to relax and do his thing like he did for Mississippi State or for the Yankees farm affiliates.


Don’t forget Jacob Lindgren ladies and gents or he’s going to make you regret it.

Jacob Lindgren the Forgotten One

Major League Baseball is a thankless job, isn’t it? It’s almost like parenting, you work your tail off and you’re still expected to do a little more. Give a little more. Do a little better. It’s a large weight to carry on your shoulders every day but like parents MLB ball players do it. Again, much like parenting, there are times that you succeed but the first time you fail it’s all washed away. I said all that to bring to light exactly what is happening right now to a Yankees prospect, a Yankees prospect that is being severely overlooked this offseason. Jacob Lindgren.

Lindgren was taken with the first pick the Yankees had in the 2014 MLB Draft and was expected to move through the Yankees system rather quickly. Lindgren made his MLB debut early on in 2015 but an elbow injury derailed the beginning of his MLB career. Lindgren has bone spurs removed from his left elbow and missed the remainder of the 2015 season with surgery. While in the majors Lindgren did well and seemed to be slipping his way into Joe Girardi’s Circle of Trust but now it seems like no one remembers the name or mentions him anymore. Jacob Lindgren, the forgotten one.

Lindgren was not listed on either of Baseball America’s or Baseball Prospectus’s Top Yankees prospects list, although he did make my personal list, and was not listed in the Top 10 on MLB.com’s Pipeline list of prospects either. Lindgren is not being mentioned anywhere but here on The Greedy Pinstripes and that may be a good thing for him.

Lindgren went into the 2015 season with high hopes and expectations, entering the 2016 season he is the forgotten one. That’s a lot of weight off his shoulder and his left elbow and that may allow Lindgren to relax and do his thing like he did for Mississippi State or for the Yankees farm affiliates.

Don’t forget Jacob Lindgren ladies and gents or he’s going to make you regret it. 

Has Girardi Lost Confidence in Justin Wilson?

The recipe for much of the 2015 season has been simple for the New York Yankees, get the starting pitcher through five innings and hand the ball off to Chasen Shreve, Justin Wilson, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for the 6^th inning through the 9^th inning. For much of the season this game plan has worked with miraculous success but recently it seems like there may be a rift in the clubhouse or a wrinkle in the plan. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that Joe Girardi has lost confidence in his 7^th inning man, Wilson.

What made me think of the notion was the fact that Wilson was removed after just eight pitches in Tuesday night’s victory over the Boston Red Sox. Wilson looked sharp recording the first two outs with ease before giving up a hit to Jackie Bradley Jr. that forced him out of the game and Dellin Betances into the contest. The same happened when the Yankees were in Atlanta in the game that Luis Severino started. Wilson was not given the reigns to the full inning, although granted he did not pitch well at all in that 7^th inning, in what is looking more and more like a trend and less and less like a coincidence.


Looking at the last month or so of sample size we can see that Wilson was given less than an inning of work in four consecutive outings and saw less than a full inning nine different times since the beginning of August. The number of days in between Wilson's outings have increased as well with two instances where the lefty had four days of rest, one outing was three days after his last and two more were two days separated from his previous outing. Earlier in the season Girardi was using Wilson, Shreve, Betances and Miller every day or every other day. 

It's too early to tell if Wilson has fallen out of the Circle of Trust or if the Yankees manager is simply trying to give him more rest for the stretch run but the pattern is beginning to show. Maybe I'm looking too much into this but when I find myself second guessing myself I usually end up regretting it... because I'm usually right.

Weekly Check In: Jacob Lindgren

With Chris Martin on the disabled list, David Carpenter falling out of the Circle of Trust and the likes of Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances being overused already this season tell me again why Lindgren is not in the major league bullpen? With stats like these it's going to be hard to justify keeping him in Scranton for much longer:

Year	Lev	W	L	ERA	G	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9
2015	AAA	0	1	1.88	11	2	14.1	12	7	3	0	7	20	1.326	7.5	0.0	4.4	12.6

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