The Dodgers are certainly the story of the offseason already. Tends to happen when you sign the biggest free agent in history with the biggest contract in history that also is kind of the weirdest contract in history. They’re also not done, apparently.
L.A.’s biggest hole is the rotation. And after the trade for Glasnow, their biggest hole is . . . still the rotation.
It’s not hard to see why Glasnow is tantalizing. When he’s on the mound, he is a celestial weapon. He’s struck out over a third of the hitters he’s seen every season since the Pirates, in their infinite wisdom, moved him to Tampa. He also doesn’t walk many, which has led to sub-.300 FIPs the last four full seasons. He shows off truly ace stuff when he takes the ball.
The problem is those “whens” that appear in the previous paragraph. The 120 innings Glasnow threw last year are a career-high. He’s 30. He’s only managed over 100 innings in one other season. He quite simply can’t get on the mound regularly.
Maybe the Dodgers think they only need to have him on the mound come October, and perhaps that’s true. That’s harder than it sounds, as Glasnow has only thrown 17 postseason innings in his career. There isn’t much track record of him getting there in one piece.
We already know that Shohei Ohtani won’t be pitching one inning in 2024. Come 2025, he’ll be a starter coming off two Tommy John surgeries who has thrown less than 500 innings in five seasons. Maybe they’ll bring Clayton Kershaw back for 2024, except he’s in his late 30s coming off back surgery. Right now, the rotation is anchored by Walker Buehler, himself coming off Tommy John surgery last year. Dustin May is now a ghost. Tony Gonsolin will be eating roadkill on the training table after his own bout with TJ disease. It’s not the most firm ground.
And according to Ohtani, the Dodgers have their own organizational psychosis.
They told him that after an unmatched decade. If the Dodgers are hinging their entire sense of self-worth on a handful of games in October, they’ll never be happy. And Ohtani doesn’t guarantee that much more in the squeezed-down crucible of the MLB playoffs, Especially when he won’t be on the mound for another year.
The Dodgers still might capture Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will have to navigate a 162-game season for the first time and already comes with the odometer pretty high. The rotation would be more stitched up with him, but again, would carry a fair amount of risk.
All of this is merely to say that the Dodgers can’t guarantee themselves a World Series next year, for those who are already filled with dread. And if the Dodgers are telling Ohtani that nothing they’ve done in the past 10 years matters (we knew that 2020 World Series didn’t count), then perhaps the internal pressure has played a factor in the Dodgers spitting up come the fall. Maybe it still will.
It’s just about all we have to hang onto these days.
And then there is this
Ever see a team completely quit? You know you have when the social media team can see it:
Follow Sam on Twitter @Felsgate and on Bluesky @felsgate.bsky.social
Original source here
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