LOS ANGELES — Well, the Dodgers already got one thing on their wish list as next week’s trade deadline nears.
They won’t have to go looking for starting pitching, something that Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman openly admitted before this season was a goal behind signing Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinbou Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Blake Snell on the free agent market each of the past two winters.
The Dodgers have bided their time through a handful of bullpen games and an assortment of spot starts and callups to reach mid-July with hopes of rolling out a starting rotation stocked with Snell (soon), Glasnow (three starts into his return from injury), Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Emmet Sheehan.
“I feel very confident that’s not an area we will be focused on in the market,” Friedman said now.
“We feel like we’re going to have the most high-class problem possible which is to have more guys available than spots.”
But there is another thorn in Friedman’s side.
Before the trade deadline in 2022, Friedman said he hated trading for bullpen help at the deadline, calling it “my least favorite thing to do … the acquisition cost is totally out of whack.”
He has reason to feel that way. Under Friedman, the Dodgers traded Yordan Alvarez (2016), Oneil Cruz (2017) and Zach McKinstry (2022) as prospects in deadline deals for relievers of varying merit – Josh Fields, Tony Watson and Chris Martin.
Alvarez and McKinstry have since been All-Stars and Cruz currently leads all hitters in average exit velocity after finishing third behind Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani last year (by Statcast measure).
Unfortunately for Friedman, the Dodgers’ need for bullpen help before next Thursday’s deadline feels as urgent as their need for starting pitching the past two years when they got mixed results from Lance Lynn (2023) and Jack Flaherty (2024).
“Yeah, I think so,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts agreed. “Just looking at the guys we lost (to injuries) and some of the guys we expect coming back – (Blake) Treinen and (Michael) Kopech being one. But until you get them back, you just don’t know. Obviously, we don’t know where (Brusdar) Graterol is at. So just kind of the uncertainty, I would say it’s similar to where we were at with the starting pitching last year.”
If you don’t remember – they were desperate last year.
Treinen should be back soon from his forearm injury. Kopech just began a throwing program this week and said he is targeting late August (when he will be eligible to come off the 60-day injured list following knee surgery) for his return. Graterol is still in the early stages of his throwing program after shoulder surgery last fall but is expected to be an option in September.
But the Dodgers have a shortage of high-leverage relievers they can currently count on. Evan Phillips is out for the season following Tommy John surgery. Tanner Scott took his six blown saves to the IL this week after feeling a “sting” in his forearm and being diagnosed with elbow inflammation.
Kirby Yates, meanwhile, is apparently healthy – just ineffective.
“I mean, we still have Kopech and Treinen coming back and obviously we’ll wait to see on Tanner,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said this week. “But it’s a very strong group plus other talented guys that can mix in. I would argue that if we stay somewhat healthy, that this group is better than it was last year. Obviously there’s a long time between now and the stretch run, but right now I feel very good about the talent level of this pitching staff.”
That pitching staff would look a lot more secure if the Dodgers could add any one of the high-leverage relievers being bandied about in trade speculation – closer Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax of the Minnesota Twins, Felix Bautista of the Baltimore Orioles, David Bednar of the Pittsburgh Pirates or pie-in-the-sky wish list targets Emmanuel Clase of the Cleveland Guardians and Mason Miller of the A’s. Nearly all of the top options come with multiple years of club control, which drives the price up even more.
Friedman called acquiring bullpen help in the next week “possible but not something that is critical.” Even with the loss of Phillips, the struggles of Scott and Yates and the uncertainties with Treinen and Kopech, Friedman said he does not consider it necessary to target a closer.
“For us, it’s much more about – if we can add a talented arm and the acquisition cost makes sense, we’ll do it,” he said. “But it’s not necessarily with a role in mind as much as it’s a talented arm that can get big outs in October. We will run that play out as we have done every other year.”
The offense seems to be a lower priority despite a team-wide slump (minus Will Smith) in July.
While Freddie Freeman has begun to show signs of turning things around, Mookie Betts’ worst offensive season has only deepened. He is 3 for 17 since moving into the leadoff spot and is batting .171 over his past 21 games.
Teoscar Hernandez has his own slump (.199 since the start of June) and Michael Conforto has been a free agent bust (a .185 average and .614 OPS), seemingly leaving room for improvement.
“I think you get (Max) Muncy back and we’re talking about future Hall of Famers in Freddie and Mookie that haven’t been performing up to what our expectations are,” Gomes said. “I feel strongly those guys will get it back on track and then as some of the other guys get back into a groove, coming off of injury, it’s the same thing – I think the talent level is really high.
“It just so happened a bunch of guys went into funks at the same time. We haven’t been playing very good baseball. We’re finding ways to lose and not executing in different facets of the game. Our guys are out there grinding. Sometimes that happens in a season. It happened last year as well. I think this adversity will be good at the end of the day especially as we get closer to playoff time and have another level of focus that the guys will bring each night.”
Much of this is standard posturing at the trade deadline. Friedman and Gomes are probably right – the Dodgers could win yet another division title without making a move, simply waiting for injured players to return or slumping players to move closer to their historic levels.
After all, weren’t the Dodgers accused of “ruining baseball” with all the talent they collected on this year’s roster?
“Obviously we’re always going to look at the team and say, ‘What are the things that we need to improve? How do we feel about what’s available?’ And then what do we think is going to happen with guys?’” Gomes said. “Coming into the season, we were talking about how we’ve ruined baseball with all the talent we’ve got. It’s the same group of guys.
“So I think it’s, sit back and evaluate, understand who we’re talking about on who is struggling and what have they historically done and what are we going to bet on moving forward. Now if there’s pieces here and there that make sense moving forward, we’ve never been afraid to make trades when we feel it’s a need. We’ll continue to assess. We’ll see what this next week looks like. But over the long haul – big-picture 162 (games) – and what a potential playoff team will look like, this group is really talented and I would argue it’s better than the team that won the World Series last year.”
