LOS ANGELES – Addressing the state of the latest injury to wreak havoc on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching staff, Andrew Friedman acknowledged reality and standard workplace danger.
“I think if you MR rhyme any pitcher’s arm in September, they’re not pristine,” said the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, when rookie Gavin Stone – the only Dodgers starter not to miss a turn through the rotation – landed on the injured. list with right shoulder inflammation.
Attrition has set in for the Dodgers, who are struggling to come up with much of a foundation to survive three rounds in October. Tyler Glasnow is on the shelf, with a slim margin for a return this season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is nearing a comeback after being out since June. Clayton Kershaw’s status is uncertain. Emmet Sheehan, Dustin May and River Ryan are all out for the season.
Stone on Friday became the 12th Dodgers starter to land on the injured list, joining eight others still currently on it. Friedman hasn’t ruled out a Stone return this season, but the odds are slim. The string of injuries tore up the Dodgers’ offseason plan to handle their pitching in big numbers and left them as uncertain as ever. Twelve arms have made full-time starts (not including openers) for the Dodgers this season. Which four will start in October is a different story.
“We’re going to have quite a bit of pitching,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday. “The names may be slightly different. I don’t think anyone knows who and who won’t be part of it.”
Friedman sat in triple-digit heat in the home dugout at Dodger Stadium on Friday with few answers about how his pitching staff became so decimated by injury, leaving the organization with serious rotation concerns for the second straight postseason.
Andrew Friedman said he doesn’t anticipate Clayton Kershaw needing offseason surgery to treat his bone spur in his big toe: “We’ve got to figure out for him to throw 80-90 pitches in a pretty comfortable way.”
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) 6 September 2024
He is not alone. The Atlanta Braves managed to stay in postseason contention without reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. – and without ace Spencer Strider for the season, as well as Reynaldo López and Max Fried missing time. The Tampa Bay Rays have been without ace Shane McClanahan all season and have been without Shane Baz, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs for significant stretches. Kyle Bradish, John Means and Grayson Rodriguez — all significant parts of the Baltimore Orioles’ pitching plans — are injury-free.
Friedman acknowledged industry concerns, but noted that the Dodgers will spend time researching and “reimagining” this winter when it comes to their pitching development and protocols.
“It’s been a really tough year on that front and something we’re going to have to spend a lot of time this winter to really dig into,” Friedman said. “From the time we land a pitcher, when we draft or trade for him, through the developmental path, at the major league level, obviously, it’s a problem in the industry, and the injuries that happen to us, we feel.
“Injuries that happen to other teams, we don’t feel that much. It doesn’t hit home quite the same. And so we’re going to do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position going forward.”
Stone, in many ways, represented an evolutionary breakthrough for the Dodgers. After he was blasted for a 9.00 ERA in 31 innings in his first taste of the big leagues a year ago, he emerged in late spring as a surprise to make the club’s Opening Day rotation. It took until Friday for him to call it quits, making 25 starts with a 3.53 ERA to go with a professional career high of 140 1/3 innings. Changes to his delivery, and especially to his arsenal, have unlocked some of the ability that made Stone a top-100 prospect just a few years ago.
To limit his workload, Stone did not throw 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’s a great story,” Friedman said.
It had a familiar ending.
As the Dodgers sort through answers, all there is now are theories.
“If somebody says, ‘I got it,’ I wouldn’t listen to them,” Kershaw said. The Athletics earlier this year.
“I just think throwing a baseball, especially pitching, is not a normal motion,” former Dodgers prospect Ryan Pepiot said last month. “It just isn’t. I just think it’s a combination of a lot of things. Could the pitch clock be a thing? Yes, it probably could. … Guys are trying to throw as hard as they can, trying to turn the ball just to try to miss bats.”
Friedman’s theory?
“I think a lot of this starts at the youth level, and it’s a little circular of amateur players who think what major league teams want and try to find that at a point or with not the right instruction or too young with growth plates yet. open,” Friedman said. “But then we can’t control that, or at least the dodgers can’t. And it’s really about understanding when we join a guy. And the one thing that I’m sure know, is that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and it’s like really being able to individualize how we carry pitchers, and it’s getting to know how they recover and things that we’ve been trying to track and know.”
Friedman pointed to their tendency to give beginners 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 span.
Since 2015, there have been 232 instances where relievers have made 70 or more appearances in a season. Only eight have been Dodgers, and no one since Blake Treinen has had 72 games pitched in 2021.
“I can’t imagine there’s a team that has their kids more rested than we do,” Friedman said. “Looking at the use of cow pastures, we’re near the most conservative, near the top in terms of being conservative. This does not help to avoid injuries.
“And so all of this, we have to reevaluate and reflect and acknowledge and appreciate what we don’t know. There are some that we know, and there are many that we don’t, and are simply doing everything we can to more thoughtfully create this individualized program. And we’ve started some, it’s tough when we go through a regular season and the volume of games, but we’re going to put a group together and be really thoughtful about it this offseason and rethink some of how we carry our pitchers, and the bet is that it’s going to be anywhere from somewhat productive to incredibly productive.”
Answering that question may be impossible.
(Photo by Gavin Stone: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
