Yankees place breakout reliever on IL, call up interesting prospect

New York Yankees have announced that Jake Cousins will be going on the IL with a right pec strain retroactive to September 20th, when he was pulled in the middle of an outing against the Mariners. A tough blow for this bullpen, it will be Clayton Beeter who they call up in his place, as the Yankees hope that he can continue throwing the ball well in a bullpen role. The 25-year-old has been brilliant since moving to the bullpen, as across five appearances since returning from the IL he has 12 strikeouts in seven innings pitched, not allowing a single run or walk.

His fastball velocity has ticked up and the slider is nasty, but relying on a rookie will be risky, especially when it comes at the cost of a reliable strikeout arm.

Clayton Beeter Will Serve as Yankees' Replacement For Injured Jake Cousins

The Yankees are placing Jake Cousins on the 15-day IL, knocking him out for the rest of the regular season but putting him in-line to be activated for the ALDS if he's ready. An excellent find for the Yankees, Jake Cousins posted a 2.37 ERA while striking out over 34% of batters faced, bringing a nasty slider-sinker combination to the table. One of their most reliable relievers down the stretch, he had stumbled as of late as he was battling this pectoral issue.

Over his last nine outings, Cousins had walked eight batters and hit two more, sporting a 5.40 ERA and not looking particularly sharp. His fastball topped out at 92 MPH against the Mariners, an indication that he was not rebounding well between outings, and Aaron Boone pulled him after just two batters. They described the issue as not being too serious, but now that he's on the IL, his status for October is something the Yankees cannot be sure of.

In his place, they'll have pitching prospect Clayton Beeter come up, who has shown flashes of being a multi-inning bullpen weapon.

Across 39 MiLB innings this season between Double-A and Triple-A, Clayton Beeter has posted a 2.08 ERA with a 35.7% strikeout rate, but the big issue for him has always been command. This season, his walk rate sat at 13.4%, but since moving to the bullpen he's made a subtle change that has dramatically improved his command. The right-hander is delivering out of the stretch instead of using a traditional wind-up, resulting in his pitches being in-zone nearly 55% of the time with zero walks.

In this reliever role, Beeter has sat at around 95 MPH on his fastball with 17 inches of ride, with his slider being his signature strikeout pitch thanks to its sharp drop. The Yankees will activate him for the final game of this series against the Oakland Athletics, with Luis Gil taking the bump with a chance to deliver a series sweep and shrink the AL East magic number down to 2.