Mark Melancon-06 draftee

He missed all of 2007 because of the surgery and subsequent rehab. He will make his major league debut no later than 2009, and there is an outside chance he could come up this season in September, though he has thrown a ton of innings. Also, he was taken in the 9th round, not the 16th.

injury problems every season as you say, he was drafted by the Yankees knowing he would likely need TJ surgery and in the 9th round they felt it was worth the risk. He has torn up every level of the minors.

As for his debut, you left out the real answer. He will be here in September. Definitely no later than May of next season, so I don’t see why 2010-2012 would be options. The reason I say he’ll be up when the rosters expand is because the Yankees are preparing him. Until about 10 days ago, he has only come in to start innings. However, about 10 days ago they brought him in during the middle of an inning. Also, he had never pitched back to back days and that also changed about five days ago. They are slowly preparing him for major league outings. For reference, these are the EXACT same steps they took with Joba as a reliever last August about a week or two before calling him up as well.

I wouldn’t look at his innings either, although they are high. The Yankees are going by pitch counts with him, not innings. He tends to pitch to contact with his heavy fastball and power curve that induces grounder after grounder, so he literally has 7 pitch innings VERY often. At one point he actually had a 4 inning outing because he had only thrown 23 pitches in the first 3 innings, and they were trying to push him to 30 pitches for arm strength reasons. So while his innings total is high, he completes those innings in half the amount of work than most pitchers. He’s the closer of the future for the Yankees.