Lance Lynn Has Drawn Interest As Reliever

Veteran right-hander Lance Lynn has pitched in 364 big league games — 340 of them starts. He hasn’t come out of the bullpen since the 2018 season, when he made all of four relief outings. Since 2019, he ranks 15th among all big league pitchers in games started. Be that as it may, Lynn himself tells Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic that multiple teams have reached out to his representatives at Headline Sports to inquire about his willingness to pitch in relief — possibly as a closer.

For much of his career, Lynn was as bankable a source of 30-plus starts as the game had to offer. He did miss the 2016 season due to Tommy John surgery, but in every other 162-game season from 2012-21, he averaged 31 starts. His 13 starts in the shortened 2020 season led Major League Baseball. Outside of that one major arm injury, Lynn was the consummate workhorse.

Knee injuries began to dog the right-hander in 2021, however. He hit the injured list at the end of August that year and wound up making “only” 28 starts with 157 innings pitched as a result. The following April, he underwent surgery to repair a torn tendon in his knee. He was limited to 21 starts in 2022 but still notched a solid 3.99 ERA in 121 2/3 frames after returning in mid-June. Lynn again made 32 starts and topped 180 innings in 2023 — albeit with poor results (5.73 ERA). His 2024 campaign, however, saw him hit the injured list on two different occasions owing to inflammation in that surgically repaired right knee.

Over the past three seasons, Lynn has pitched 422 1/3 innings. He’s averaged 25.333 starts per season. Lynn posted sub-4.00 ERAs in 2022 and 2024, but his rocky 2023 campaign balloons his earned run average in that three-year span to a much rougher 4.71. His strikeout rate and velocity have declined incrementally in that three-year period, although even his 2024 levels (21.3 K%, 92.3 mph average four-seamer) are still passable.

A move to the bullpen for Lynn could be intriguing for a number of reasons. He’s long been an extreme fastball pitcher — the rare arm who can succeed with minimal secondary offerings. Since 2017, Lynn has thrown a curveball for 7% of his offerings and his changeup at a 4.3% clip with an even less-used slider (1.4%). The rest of his pitches have been four-seamers (45.3%), sinkers (22.5%) and cutters (19.5%) — all ranging from 88.5 mph (cutter) to 93.4 mph (four-seamer).

A move to the ’pen would presumably bump Lynn’s heater back upward. He’s never been a true flamethrower but did average a career-high 94.6 mph on his four-seamer back in 2019. Relievers generally have an easier time getting by with a two-pitch arsenal; Lynn could feasibly rely on a four-seamer/cutter combo working out of the bullpen. They’ve been his two most effective pitches, on a rate basis, throughout his career.

There’s no guarantee Lynn signs as a pure reliever, of course. His 2024 season yielded solid results even when pitching as a starter. The volume wasn’t there, but he logged a 3.84 ERA in his 23 starts. The Cardinals generally limited him to five frames per outing, though; he only recorded an out in the sixth inning or later in seven of his 23 trips to the mound. A team looking for an effective five-and-dive starter at the back of the rotation could still bring Lynn into the fold, but at a time when reliever-to-starter conversions are en vogue, he’s an interesting candidate to try the opposite approach.

It’s not known which clubs have looked into Lynn as a possible closer, though speculatively speaking, a budget-crunched club like the Rangers — who already know Lynn well — would be an intriguing fit. The D-backs are still seeking a closer but are already running a club-record payroll after their shock signing of Corbin Burnes.

Rosenthal adds that there are clubs interested in Lynn in his more traditional rotation role. He’d be a relatively low-cost option for teams hoping to pile up some affordable innings. The Padres, Brewers and A’s all speculatively fit that billing. But at the very least, Lynn sounds open to the idea of pitching in a late-game role. He described his reaction to his agent’s initial presentation of the concept: “I went, ‘Oooooh. Is the second act, the final act of my career, closing games?’ It sounds fun.”