The Dodgers have - no surprise here - signed Roki Sasaki, the young Japanese phenom. He’s cheap, he’s good, and he’s risky, so there’s an immediate suggestion that the Dodgers will shift to a six-man rotation to protect him, as well as the two other Japanese aces in the rotation. With Shohei Ohtani coming back from his second elbow surgery, it seems more needed.
However, I am on record for better than twenty years as against the six-man rotation. (Heck, I’m mostly against the five man rotation.) First, there’s absolutely no evidence that a six-man rotation (or five days of rest) make pitchers any healthier. Just look at Ohtani for this, or at Sasaki, who’s had arm problems if not elbow, during his short career in NPB. Throw hard, a lot, and the risk is apparent, and rest is important, but not in terms of days.
Secondly, we know that Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are very good. Glasnow’s had some injury issues, but let’s assume he’s relatively healthy, at least as much as any pitcher can be. Would two high-dollar pitchers who have had issues with in-game stamina rather than recovery between starts be helped or harmed by adjusting their schedules and rest? That’s an absolute unknown.*
*A quick footnote: The Dodgers may have a lot of turnover and overlaps in their analytics, but sources of mine have given more than a suggestion that they’re trying to do more things with biomechanics and biomeasurements, within the bounds of what they’re allowed under the CBA. We know no one is wearing wearables in game, but that multiple systems can get those measurements with cameras and other methods. When I say unknown, I mean that there is some data that the Dodgers could use to determine things internally, but that would be really tough to integrate.
Finally, we know that even with injuries, a six man rotation means taking starts away from someone at the front of the rotation and giving them to someone at the back. Snell and Glasnow shouldn’t be giving up starts to Tony Gonsolin or Bobby Miller, let alone the three Japanese. There is an argument that in a rotation with five 1s or 2s, that has less weight, but I believe that’s a stronger point to stay with five.
But I do acknowledge the belief that they’ll need to buy some extra rest for some of the pitchers. Indeed, Gonsolin himself is coming back from injury. Here’s where I think the Dodgers odd depth could be used creatively. Instead of simply rotating around six pitchers and dealing with the off-days, rainouts, and travel that are inevitable, as well as injuries that are likely to happen, I believe the Dodgers should create a pitching staff that is ten deep in starters, six deep in relievers, and has the ability to adjust on the fly.
The core is a five man rotation of Ohtani, Yamamoto, Sasaki, Snell, and Glasnow. There are two “extra” starters - let’s go with Gonsolin and Miller - who are slotted in any time that one of the Japanese pitchers needs an extra day of rest. Sometimes it’s the extra “swingman”, sometimes it will be an off-day that gets that rest. There would be an additional two swingman/starters who will be in Oklahoma City and could be rotated with options (Miller has one, Gonsolin does not), or IL stints. That could be the rehabbing Dustin May, Landon Knack, or Justin Wrobleski. Man, the Comets are going to have a nice rotation to go with their new name.
Both of the swingmen will function as expected. Long relievers when not needed, maintaining their starter-level workload in side sessions, and stepping in when the schedule and workload of the Core Five need it.
This leaves the bullpen with six or seven (god forbid) relievers. Start with Michael Kopech, and mix and match between the other power arms, lefty specialists, and failed starters out there. I’m confident that Mark Prior will be able to put together something out of all that heat and funk. With the swingmen added, there may have to be some up and down or IL shuffle, but there’s plenty there to not only carry their load, but to take down pitchers like Snell who need to not see the lineup a third time.
There used to be an assumption that a team needed 1000 innings out of their starters. There’s still roughly 1,500 innings to complete a season, but even with six starters who last all season without injury or skips, you’re looking at 26 starts of about 5 2/3 innings on average. That’s roughly 150 per so even with six that’s only 900. The bullpen, specifically the swingmen, need to soak up at least 100 of those innings, whether in relief or making spot starts. That shouldn’t be difficult, especially if there’s some in-season rotation/replacement.
And it’s at this point in the writing that I realize I haven’t even mentioned Clayton Kershaw. He’s stated he’ll sign with the Dodgers, so I don’t think the Rangers can dream on him. Assuming the toe is healthy, it looked like the shoulder was. Even at his age, Kershaw could give them some good innings. I don’t think this will be one of those Roger Clemens late signings because he doesn’t want to do training camp, but it’s a decent enough comp. I think Kershaw waits largely to let everything play out and it’s hard to think both sides wouldn’t want to make it work somehow.
Jamey Newberg riffed on some trade ideas which would extract Bobby Miller. I’m not sure why Jamey or the Rangers would want him at this stage, but the idea of the Dodgers trading off one of the pitchers makes some sense. There’s three or four good arms coming back from surgery in the next year that makes a deep staff even deeper and all of them can’t play. Even with the concept that they’ll explode another batch of young arms this year, there’s still too much talent and too easy a way to backfill the backups cheaply. The Dodgers still need a Kike Hernandez type and one of those pitchers could easily get that. Someone’s going to dream on Dustin May.
So back to the six man. It takes one of those Charlie Kelly style conspiracy boards to do it — I couldn’t even get AI to figure it out, though it’s admittedly on me — but there’s a way to mix and match the three guys who need five days rest with two guys that need four by adding in the two swingmen. Read the sentence twice; it eventually makes sense. Given all the resources of the Dodgers, they could not just figure it out, but do so dynamically so they’d always have a properly and optimally rested pitcher coming to the mound.
It’s not as if the Dodgers don’t have enough advantages, but this could be yet another. If the team is so good that they’re functionally drawing new players to it and they have the money to hold the proper core of it together, I sure wouldn’t want to be in the NL West for a while. Or the NL, for that matter. We know the playoffs induce enough randomness to largely prevent dynasties, but there’s a point at which even randomness won’t be enough.
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With Sasaki a Dodger, we’re left with Alex Bregman waiting to see who’ll pay him, Pete Alonso finding a tighter market than expected, and a bunch of pieces and parts. Some of those parts are useful, there’s still a lot of good fits, but for teams like the Blue Jays and Cardinals, not much has happened. The Jays were as in on Sasaki as anyone and even with the nasty exchange rate, they’ve made a couple credible offers and missed. It’s at this point where maybe they add an Anthony Santander — and yep, that just happened with a five year, $90m deal.
The Dodgers added a big reliever in Tanner Scott, the Mets added AJ Minter, leaving just a few pieces out there that many would like. Pete Alonso is not going back to the Mets and it’s looking increasingly like he’s the guy that got left without a chair in this year’s musical chairs. There’s going to be a lot in the way of talk that analytics don’t like him, but even the less-analytical teams aren’t biting. Alonso will get signed, but several sources think he may take a one-year deal in hopes an angry Polar Bear has a monster season and can cash in. I like anyone betting on themselves, but I don’t like Alonso’s odds.
I do expect both Bregman and Alonso to sign in the next ten days.
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Someone asked me why the Athletics are making a bunch of signings, like Louis Severino, the Brett Rooker extension, and lately Jose LeClerc in front of Mason Miller. With Miller’s arm, having a backup isn’t a luxury, but most of these are shorter term deals at market value. Frankly, they have to overpay a bit to get people to West Sacramento and most of these deals are simply to keep the A’s off the revenue sharing floor. In fact, if I was better with memes, I’d have one of John Fisher and Marshawn Lynch together saying “these guys are just here so I don’t get fined.”
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There’s little injury news at this stage, though it’s about the time we start seeing rehab guys posting videos of how good they look throwing inside somewhere. They’re mostly a month into serious build for spring training and most teams will have a very good idea of where those players are.
There’s one issue that came up, when Jeff Hoffman failed his physical with the Braves and with the Orioles. Mark Bowman says it was a shoulder issue and a source told me that it was a labrum issue. He signed for less years and dollars overall, going instead to the Blue Jays, where like the Braves there’s consideration that he’ll go into the rotation. For those who think the Jays might have taken some risk signing a guy two teams had passed on with cause, that’s the case with any pitcher. If the labrum issue is extant but asymptomatic, that’s also the case with a number of pitchers throughout the league.
Instead, I think this is an opportunity for the Blue Jays to scoop up a solid pitcher at a time where his market value is slightly down. It expresses some confidence in their medical staff and pitching development and the deal is not so big that even if it goes wrong, the staff doesn’t collapse. If Hoffman actually can start at just a league average level, this contract is downright cheap when you compare it to someone like Luis Severino (3/67.)
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Not to be political, but Donald Trump has never thrown out a first pitch as a President. he did one back in 2004 at a minor league stadium, but I can’t find any coverage or video of it besides that it happened. I wonder why he’s refused, since he’s close with several owners. Every President since Taft had done so, but Biden also failed to do one during his Presidency. Is the tradition broken?
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I am lucky to have been alive to listen to Bob Uecker. Everything about the man was good for baseball. We have few Ueckers, but we have a lot of those “soundtrack of the summer” guys. If you have a team, you probably know what I mean and I will argue that there’s simply no bad announcers in the game right now. There will never be another Ueck, but there will be a continual soundtrack and we’re lucky to have them.