Former Frenship Tiger Pitcher Tyler Lyons Signs With New York Yankees

On Thursday afternoon, the New York Yankees announced that they signed former Frenship Tiger and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Tyler Lyons to a minor league contract and assigned him to their Triple A affiliate, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Lyons was actually drafted by the Yankees in the 10th round of the 2009 MLB draft but he chose to return to Oklahoma State. The next year he was drafted a round earlier by the St. Louis Cardinals where he would spend the first 8 years of his baseball career.

During his tenure for the St. Louis Cardinals, Lyons compiled 268.1 innings with a 4.09 ERA, 9.1 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 from 2013-18 out of the Cardinals bullpen. In 2019, Lyons has mostly been pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates Triple A affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians.

This year in Triple A, Lyons has been strong. He holds a 3.35 ERA with 10.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 0.79 HR/9 and a 39.8 percent ground-ball rate in 45 2/3 innings. Lyons will hopefully add a little depth to the Yankees bullpen when called up, and will see some time when teams switch to the 40 man roster in September.

I personally wouldn't be surprised if Lyons found himself on the postseason roster for the Yankees if he impresses during his time. Last season the Yankees kept lefty Stephen Tarpley on their playoff roster for the AL Wild Card game and during the ALDS due to his pitching performance during September.

Lyons could be the lefty out of the pen for the Yankees come postseason time where having too much pitching is never a bad option.