I have been pretty vocal as to how the Dodgers are the best-run organization in baseball from top-to-bottom, but there is one area where they are admittedly not the best, and that is pitcher development as is evidenced by all the pitchers on the IL. At last count, the Dodgers had twelve pitchers on the IL, including the following:
- Brogdon
- Glasnow
- Gonsolin
- Graterol
- Kelly
- Kershaw
- May
- Ryan
- Sheehan
- Stone
- Yamamoto
- Hurt
That’s a pretty good pitching staff on the shelf. The Indians have five pitchers on their IL. FIVE! That includes Shane Bieber, their Ace who had Tommy John earlier in the season. The Dodgers have been interested in Matthew Boyd for years, but Cleveland has him, and he has been incredible in his five games back. He has started all five games, and in the first two games, he pitched 5.1 innings. In the next three, he has pitched six innings each. His ERA sits at 2.20, and his WHIP is 0.77. I know that Freidman wanted him, but the Indians, ‘er Guardians, got him. That was a great pickup and he is really good, but he was never that good until the Guardians got him. They have a pitching machine in Cleveland… and the Dodgers would do well to imitate them.
The Cleveland Guardians organization is famous for its pitching development program, and for turning draft picks into Cy Young-caliber, starters. www.Cleveland.com had a great article about this in July. In part, they wrote:
Home plate doesn’t move. The baseball does.
— Paul Hoynes
Fundamentally, that may explain why the Guardians have produced more big league-ready pitchers than hitters over the last several years. There has to be a little more detail involved than that, right?
Still, the Guardians have had a magic touch when it comes to developing pitchers, their own and those acquired in trades and free agency.
The rotation just before the All-Star break featured three rookie draft picks in Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen and Gavin Williams. When Cleveland comes out of the All-Star break on Friday, Bibee and Williams will still be in the rotation, while Allen, optioned to Class AAA Columbus on June 29, has a chance at being promoted to pitch against the Pirates next week at PNC Park.
This is the second big wave of rookie starters to join the rotation in the last five years. Shane Bieber, the Guardians’ ace, led the first one in 2018. He was followed by Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac in 2019. They were all drafted in 2016.
When Bieber was promoted to Cleveland in 2018, he joined a rotation that included Corey Kluber, Mike Clevinger, Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer. Those four had been acquired in trades by Cleveland and undergone significant development in the minors.
Kluber, by that time, had already won two Cy Young Awards with Cleveland. Bauer would win one in 2020 with Cincinnati, the same year Bieber would win his in Cleveland.
The picture can’t be much clearer. The Guardians know pitching. Hitting? Not so much.
Here’s a great video explanation of how and why:
The Guardians are also dealing with injuries, but not to the extent that the Dodgers are. Rob Hill is employed by the Dodgers as Director of Pitching. Prior to that, he was involved with Driveline Baseball in Kent, Washington, and has been on the cutting edge of training with weighted balls, pitch grips, spin rates, and improving velocity. Here is an interview with Rob:
The Dodgers and Guardians have been on the cutting edge in developing young pitching, and as of today, the Guardians team ERAS is 8th in MLB at 3.79, while the Dodgers is 10th at 3.88. The Mariners are #1 at 3.51, so the Top 10 teams are all close. It is impressive that the Dodgers have done this with eleven of their pitchers on the IL. The Dodgers depth is crazy… that’s a given, but I think the organization is looking into what is causing this plethora of injuries. Sometimes your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness.
Landon Knack pitched a very good game and except for a single HR, he was great over six innings. He now has 54 IP in the Majors and has a 3.00 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP. He could be a starter in the playoffs. Time will tell. He has just 68 IPs in the Minors, so he should not be fatigued. This could be big in the playoffs. I’d like to see him drop about 20 pounds over the winter. A couple of years ago, he got off the junk food mobile and got serious about his eating and training habits. I think he can do even better. Brandon Lewis (Tulsa) did a total body makeover a few years ago. It didn’t help him with the bat as he is struggling (still), but the makeover was amazing.
The above photo was from his senior year in high school. Below is a video of him now:
I don’t see Brandon making the Show, but he really transformed his body.
Now, back to the task at hand. To me, it’s really not surprising that Glasnow, Stone, and others have experienced fatigue this year as they have surpassed the number of innings pitched in a season. Stone will be shut down for about ten days, and then they will see how he feels. Yamamoto will be back next week and built up slowly. We hope Buehler can show more progress in his next start, and Kershaw and Miller are wild cards. Flaherty and Knack are the only starters 100% healthy as of today. N ext man up!
- Damon Keith is a player I have liked for a long time. Still 24 years old, he is a 6′ 3″ 200 lb. RH batter with some pop and above-average speed. At Tulsa, he has 279 ABs with 16 HR and 12 SBs. He has a .857 OPS. He should move to OKC next year. Watch him.
- I suppose that Teoscar Hernandez will get X-Rays or a MRI today and we shall see what happens to him. This might open the door for Dalton Rushing.
Discussion (23)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Shame on me. I forgot about Pages.
Ohtani– Rally Killer
GOOD NEWS!!!!!!
Teo Hernández said Saturday that all of the scans on his foot came back clean, and he is feeling better. He believes he can return to the lineup as soon as Monday or Tuesday, per The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya.
i said earlier, the best team in baseball can do much much. better than nerdy nelson and “jolly “ Jess! please put orel and nevertt on! nothing against ladies on broadcasts, they just should be required not to be awful! Nelson? puke!
9:10 PM ET
Guardians (81-60)
Dodgers (84-57)
SP Gavin Williams R
3-7 4.55 ERA
SP Ryan Brasier R (Opener)
1-0 3.38 ERA
Confirmed Lineup
DH S. Ohtani L
RF Mookie Betts R
1B F. Freeman L
3B Max Muncy L
CF Tommy Edman S
2B Gavin Lux L
SS Miguel Rojas R
LF Andy Pages R
C A. Barnes R
95° Wind 2 mph Out
wow! i was just joshing about Taylor’s hard swings! i like Chris! he does strike out too much, but so does max. Ohtani takes some ugly swings too! Taylor is a very good defender wherever you put him. He’ll be on the roster. earlier i thought he might be let go. But! he’s been valuable before and probably will be again!
Can’t stand Jessica Mendoza announcing Dodger games, It maybe not politically correct to say and I may get chastice for sayingit,,but every time Knack had a strikeout with her annoying laugh it appeared to me she was about have an orgasm. Just my observation, If she is on tonight’s game,the mute button will be ON.
I would take a wild guess and say that CT3 as the 26th man on our playoff roster can’t hurt and might pay dividends.
Book em
Regarding Chris Taylor generally, and having nothing to do with last night’s game, he just isn’t a good baseball player and hasn’t been for a few years.
2024 – -.9 WAR, .173/.280/.265/.545, 57 OPS+, 69 K in 215 PA (32% K rate)
2023 – 1.4 WAR, .237/326/.420/.746, 102 OPS+ 125 K in 384 PA (33% K rate)
2022 – .7 WAR, .221/.304/.373/.677, 89 OPS+ , 160 K in 402 PA (40% K rate)
The Dodgers will always have a better option than to play a guy with 57 OPS+
Wow. I went to the other blog, and people are losing their minds over CT3 and they want to run Doc and Friedman out of town because of well… immense moronism! Wow. Just wow!
Damn good blog trashed by moronic comments. It’s a damn shame!
My view right now:
Shadrack at 12 weeks/26 pounds. He is going to be a horse!
“Brusdar Graterol pitched a scoreless eighth inning with a strikeouts, in his second game on this particular rehab assignment for the right-hander. Graterol could rejoin the Dodgers soon, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register”.
He ended with this:
Friedman’s theory?
“I think a lot of this starts at the youth level, and it’s a little bit circular from amateur players thinking what major-league teams want and trying to seek that at a point either with not the right instruction or too young with growth plates still open,” Friedman said. “There are a lot of factors, but then we can’t control that, or at least I cannot, the Dodgers cannot. And it’s really about understanding when we’re onboarding a guy. And the one thing I know for sure is there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and it’s how to really be able to individualize how we bring pitchers along, and it’s getting to know how they recover and things that we’ve been trying to track and know.”
Friedman pointed to their propensity for giving starters extra rest. Since he took over in 2015, the Dodgers entered Friday with 1,265 games started by pitchers who were on extra rest — at 129 such starts this year, they were on pace for the most in a single season in that period.
Since 2015, there have been 232 instances where relievers have made 70 or more appearances in a season. Just eight have been by Dodgers, and none since Blake Treinen had 72 games pitched in 2021.
“I can’t imagine there’s a team that has their guys go on extra rest more than us,” Friedman said. “Looking at bullpen usage, we’re near the more conservative, near the top in terms of being conservative. That’s not helping in terms of staving off injuries.
“And so all of this, we need to re-evaluate and be thoughtful about and acknowledge and appreciate what we don’t know. There’s some we know, and there’s a lot we don’t know, and just do everything we can to more thoughtfully create this individualized program. And we started some, it’s hard when we’re going through a regular season and the volume of games, but we’ll put together a group and be really thoughtful about it this offseason and rethink some of how we bring our pitchers along, and the bet is that it will be anywhere from somewhat productive to incredibly productive.”
Answering that question might be impossible.
Andrew Friedman addresses the Dodgers Pitching Injuries in The Athletic:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5751280/2024/09/06/dodgers-andrew-friedman-pitching-injuries/
In part:
Stone on Friday became the 12th Dodgers starter to land on the injured list, joining eight others still currently on it. Friedman didn’t rule out Stone returning this season, but the odds are slim. The spate of injuries has torn the Dodgers’ offseason plan of addressing their pitching in sheer numbers and left them as uncertain as ever. Twelve arms have made full-fledged starts (not including openers) for the Dodgers this season. Which four start will in October is a different story.
“We’re gonna have enough pitching,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday. “The names might be a little bit different. I don’t think anyone knows who and who won’t be a part of it.”
Friedman acknowledged industry-wide concerns but noted the Dodgers will spend time investigating and “reimagining” inward this winter when it comes to their pitching development and protocols.
“It’s been a really challenging year on that front and something that we’re going to need to spend a lot of time on this winter to really dig in on,” Friedman said. “From when we onboard a pitcher, when we draft or trade for him, through the development path, at the major-league level, obviously, it’s a problem in the industry, and the injuries that are happening to us, we feel.
“Injuries that are happening to other teams, we don’t feel as much. It doesn’t hit home quite the same way. And so we’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position going forward.”
To curb his workload, Stone hadn’t thrown more than 90 pitches in an outing in more than a month. Then, after throwing 84 pitches over five innings Saturday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Stone complained of discomfort in his right shoulder.
“He is a great story,” Friedman said.
It had a familiar ending.
As the Dodgers sort through answers, all there is right now are theories.
“If someone says, ‘I have it figured out,’ I wouldn’t listen to them,” Kershaw told The Athletic earlier this year.
I updated the blog post. It turns out I omitted Kyle Hurt who recently had TJ, so the Dodgers have 12 pitches on the IL. YIKES!
Last night Jackson Ferris struck out five in his five innings, allowing two runs, including a solo home run. On the season, between High-A and Double-A, the 20-year-old right-hander leads Dodgers minor league pitchers with 140 strikeouts and his 121⅔ innings rank second on the farm.
I watched the post game interview with Andrew Friedman and he said there was n NO certainty Gavin Stone would pitch again in 2024. “10 days of rest and Wait and See”.
Hernandez (ankle) will likely be placed on the injured list, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Hernandez was hit in the foot with a pitch in the first inning and left the game immediately. Manager Dave Roberts said Hernandez “isn’t doing great” despite x-rays combing back clean. Chris Taylor entered the game in his place and is likely to see more playing time moving forward”.
Doc verified the IL possibility in his post game interview. It’s a BIG right handed bat to lose in the middle of the lineup.
According to some fans, CT3 lost that game last night. It was all his fault… because he was 0-for, but so were Smith, Edman, Lux, Kike, and Muncy! Ignore that – it is all on Taylor. (Sarcasm Alert)
It makes no difference whether the Dodgers win or lose, the Bitchers goona’ bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!
NEXT MAN UP!
It would be cool if it was Rushing but probably what will happen is Keekay will take over LF full-time.
We can still win it all like that but we can’t really lose anyone else.
The way things are going we might have a tough time holding on to first place. I really hope Buehler can keep improving and Yamamoto can pickup where he left off before being injured. I think Glasgow won’t be ready in time to be an effective starter.
If Hernandez goes on the injured list I think Outman is recalled and platoons with Pages.
i know what the statistics say, but i hate facing a left handed pitcher! Give Boyd credit,pitched a good game last night. So did Knack. One mistake to the number 8 batter! and he goes 6 shutout innings! He’ll learn. no way i send him back down! I believe the starters will be healthy for october. they better be! Hopefully zTeo will be back soon. Chris Taylor is a big tease! lol! He could fuel a wind tunnel with his swings!!! … Did anyone else hear nerdy nelson call ohtani’s. fly ball out? I guess we have to listen to him and “jolly “ Jess all weekend! The best team in baseball can do better than those 2!