Mar 7, 2016; Tampa, FL, USA; New York Yankees relief pitcher Jacob Lindgren (65) pitches against the Houston Astros during the ninth inning at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports
The Atlanta Braves signed Jacob Lindgren this offseason, and though he’ll miss all of 2017, what can they expect when he returns?
Who Is He?
The Atlanta Braves signed Lindgren after he was non-tendered by the New York Yankees this offseason.
Lindgren was a 12th round draft selection by the Chicago Cubs out of high school, but he chose instead to attend Mississippi State. The Yankees made him a 2nd round selection out of college.
The Yankees put him on the fast track to the big leagues as a reliever, reaching AA in just his draft year. He pitched for the Yankees GCL team, their low A team, the high-A team, and then AA. In all, he made 19 appearances, throwing 24 2/3 innings with a 2.19 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, and a 13/48 BB/K ratio.
In 2015, Lindgren started out with the AAA team, but after a dominant two months in the minors, he was promoted to the majors, where after some struggles in the big league bullpen, he was found to have a bone spur. He had 15 outings in AAA, throwing 22 innings with a 1.23 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and a 10/29 BB/K ratio. In the majors, he made 7 appearances, throwing 7 innings with a 5.14 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, and a 4/8 BB/K.
He recovered from the bone spur surgery in order to come back to start his recovery in high A, but while his ERA looked fine, he struggled to locate, even in spring training. After taking time off the hill, he ended up discovering he needed Tommy John surgery, effectively ending his 2017 as well. In his 6 appearances in the Florida State League, he threw 7 innings with a 2.57 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, but also 9/8 BB/K ratio.
Scouting Report
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Size/Delivery
Lindgren is listed at 5’11 and 210 pounds.
Lindgren throws exclusively out of the stretch as a reliever. He tucks his shoulder and even looks a touch toward the second baseman before then exploding toward the plate.
Lindgren throws from a 3/4 arm slot. He has an arm cock behind his back as he comes to the plate, and that allows his arm slot to be in consistent placement, however, because he explodes so violently toward the plate, Lindgren has gotten off in his landing spot, which causes him to have his hips triggered before his arm has come through the motion, putting extra stress on his arm to generate velocity.
He does use his legs well in general in his delivery when he’s going well, and he generates most of his velocity from his his lower half.
Pitches
Lindgren works with a fastball/slider mix. His fastball sits in the low- to mid-90s, touching 97-98 at its absolute peak. The fastball has some excellent movement, especially low in the zone with some hard late sink.
He does tend to get more of a cut action to the pitch from the belt up on the fastball rather than the sink, though I did note that he rarely goes up high intentionally, so a lot of that could be movement created from his delivery being off.
The slider is possibly the best pitch, a truly wicked wipeout slider that comes in around 82-85 MPH. In my viewings of his 2015 and 2016 games, he had a number of sliders where he would take off a few MPH as well. The pitch didn’t bite as hard, with a bit more slurve to it, however, the change in velocity really threw off hitters, and I don’t know that I saw the pitch thrown without getting either a swing and miss or weak contact.
Future Outlook
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While their size is not really comparable as Venters stood a more lean 6’3, 195, their stuff is very similar as far as usage pattern and velocity. In fact, the first time I really saw one of Lindgren’s wipeout sliders, I thought immediately of Venters as it was definitely the best I’d seen since his from a lefty.
Venters ran into a world of arm trouble with the angles and veracity required to generate that sort of break on the ball, and obviously Lindgren has seen his own issues so far, but as it currently stands, Venters sits with a career 2.23 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, and 10.11 K/9 rate.
Lindgren is nicknamed “The Strikeout Machine”, so the team certainly wants to let him get healthy to see what they have on their hands. He won’t be around all of 2017, and I’d wager they’ll even handle him cautiously in 2018, allowing him to ease his way back in the minors before unleashing him on the poor, poor souls facing the Braves.
