Yankees Prospects: New York will promote Rob Refsnyder in September

If you've been following our Baby Bomber Recaps all year, and I know most of you have, this is the moment we've all been waiting for. When discussing prospects that could be promoted to the majors as potential September call-ups, Brian Cashman said that the club will bring Rob Refsnyder up. While the second baseman will finally get another chance at the big league level, the Yankees GM also said they will not be calling up Aaron Judge, who some fans have been clamoring for in the last few weeks.

On the season, Refsnyder has hit .269/.360/.396 with nine home runs and 11 stolen bases in 504 plate appearances at the Triple-A level. It's pretty odd to see a top prospect like Refsnyder get that much playing time at Triple-A, since most good players only spend a half-season or so at the level in a single year. You would think that with Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan providing most of the team's 69 wRC+ at second base–which ranks them 25th in the league–Refsnyder would have gotten more than just a cameo appearance.

Many scouts believe the 24-year-old can hit at the major league level, and there's at least a decent chance he performs better than what the Yankees are going with now, however his defense has always been the real kicker. It has been reported that the Yankees still believe he needs to get better in the field before they see him as a permanent solution–a sentiment that goes along with the rumor that his teammates were not very happy with his attitude when he was briefly called up back in July. Regardless, he looked fine at second base in a small sample at Yankee Stadium and there has yet to be any concrete evidence that Refsnyder has an attitude problem, so we can only hope that he will prove the front office wrong in the brief window he will be given this month.

Meanwhile, after impressing at the Double-A level, Aaron Judge hit a much less amazing .232/.319/.405 upon his call-up to Triple-A Scranton. He still hit for some power, though his eight home runs in Scranton pale in comparison to his 12 in Trenton over a similar enough sample size. He also saw his strikeout rate jump to a career-high 28.6%, which is at least somewhat concerning, given Judge's size and already existing propensity to strike out. It might be more productive for the Yankees to give their outfield prospect a break at the end of the season and hope he rights the ship in 2016. Next year he will be 24 and will still have Carlos Beltran blocking his way to a starting outfielder role, so it's likely Cashman won't rush him up to the majors unless he actually fills a need.

In other potential September call-up news, catching prospect Gary Sanchez injured his hamstring running to first base last night. The injury couldn't have happened at a worse time as the Yankees were likely preparing to call him up in the coming weeks in order to serve as the third-string catcher. While the severity of the injury is still unknown, it seems very likely that New York could turn their attention back to Austin Romine in order to bring up a catcher who can help give the banged up Brian McCann some much-needed rest. Jacob Lindgren might not be able to return in September like was initially thought. After the lefty underwent surgery to remove bone chips in his elbow, the 2014 draft pick has yet to throw a bullpen, so he could be done for the year. We only have a few more days left, so we should see how things shake out fairly soon.