I understand that. Obviously the hope was that Ricky would stay healthier this year and would build up stamina and such, which would have made him an option as our 6th, 7th or 8th starter (which is what MikeM was suggesting he shouldn't have been relied upon to be). If you look around the minors, you will find lots of very good SP'ing prospect who only average 4 to 5 inning per start....but when they get to the majors, they average 5 to 6 innings per start. Bobby and Bryce Miller are both recent examples. There doesn't seem to be any top SP'ing prospects who are averaging 6-7 innings in the minors these days. There must be data out there that says that's the wrong way to develop pitchers (likely along the lines of the "don't waste their bullets in the minors" thought process).
That said, I agree that injuries have hampered Ricky's development and obviously it would be a lot more promising if Ricky was able to throw some 5 or 6 inning games this year to demonstrate he can go deeper into games. Unfortunately that never happened and quite frankly, I'm not sure it ever will. He's still quite young, but he looks like he'll be unable to stay healthy while sustaining the velo/stuff he's shown. Ricky's velo/stuff "jumped" significantly after the Jays drafted him. One has to wonder if he wouldn't be better off pulling back on the effort to take some pressure off his arm. The results will suffer, but at least he'll have a chance to pitch more than 32 innings a year. He'll be an interesting case to follow over the next few years. I kind of suspect at this point that he'll continue to max out his effort and will become an often injured RPer long term.