At the end of an elsewhere festive offseason, Dodgers I had to take a critical look at one of their biggest organizational faults this winter.
In the weeks preceding training in the spring, team officials embarked on what they described as a “deep dive” in Their series of punching injuries in recent years. They called meetings involving club leaders, pitching coaches and medical staff. Together, they tried to diagnose the causes – and to reflect on potential solutions – for an injury crisis that has had an impact on the world of baseball as a whole, but ravaged its pitching staff more than any other team of MLB in recent seasons.
“We have plunged quite deep”, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman Said last week, when the dodgers gathered at camelback Ranch for another season which could be defined by their ability to stay healthy on the mound. “We were able to have substantial discussions.”
It remains to be seen how successful this examination is.
While Friedman said that the team had identified “certain things that we will do differently”, he also admitted that there was no “Ah-ha! We understood it ”. He said that the club’s club investigation will continue during spring training, when they plan to “create small groups to dive into various things”. At the same time, he has attempt: “There are obviously problems of big macro which are much more difficult to solve.
“There is a lot of things in baseball for young people who are different from the way we take it or how Major League Baseball would set it up,” said Friedman, referring to the way an accent to the industry scale on speed and spin has led young launchers to train in a how makes them more sensitive to injuries at the start of their professional career.
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“Chicken or egg on how these things are untangled, and the momentum has changed in a different way, is a much larger question,” said Friedman. “It is easier for us to control how things work within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.”
In the long term, such organizational changes could arise in a myriad of facets – methods of developing minor leagues to rest and recovery routines between outings for large leaguers, to the way Dodgers evaluate the choices potential recovery.
“It is not as if we are going to have some more meetings here and say:” Okay, we are good “,” said Friedman. “It will be omnipresent for us.”
In the short term, however, Dodgers are counting on a simpler strategy to try to mitigate the risk of injury on the mound in 2025.
Depth. Many, a lot, a lot of depth.
This offseason, the majority of expenses nearly half a billion dodgers were allocated to pitching staff. The double winner of the Cy Young Award Blake Snell and the 23 -year -old Japanese phenomenon, Roki Sasaki, were added to the starting rotation. In the enclosure of the readers, the team re-signed Blake Treinen before adding two of the best veterans on the market for free agents, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.
The result is a list which includes up to 12 launchers currently in good health capable of starting games, and an enclosure of the readers, therefore overloaded, the dodgers had to exchange a veteran formerly fought, Ryan Brasier, to make room for Their new additions.
“I am sure that some of (our problems of past injury) have created part of the state of mind this offseason,” said Friedman about the aggressive pursuit of the teeming reinforcement team this winter. “Just to be as prepared as possible.”
Addition of the pitch coach Mark Prior: “I just think that we all feel very lucky to be part of an organization that is ready to continue pushing to try and win a championship every year.”.
Dodgers have already been depth. Last season, they thought that the additions of Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and James Paxton would offer ample production in the rotation. For a large part of the last seasons, the team has also counted on its pitch pipeline rich in talent to provide the depth of the minor leagues.
Alas, it didn’t always work.
Glasnow and Yamamoto have both arrived with sustainability questioning points, and both lacked major games of the 2024 season while on the list of injuries. The team’s ability to keep their weapons in good health was an even more important problem, ending last year with six local launchers due to major arms injuries.
“We sat here during spring training last year and said:” Oh, we have so much pitch depth, we are certainly not going to go to the market in July for pitching “”, said Friedman. “Fast advance until July and we are on the market for pitching.”
The Dodgers have renewed the hope that they will be able to avoid this fate this season.
They have not only sumptuously reinforced their depth during the offseason, but did it with acquisitions like Snell (which made at least 20 departures each full season of his nine years) and Scott (which has accumulated 275 appearances In the last four seasons) which have had lasting history in their MLB careers.
Compared to the last two years, they will be much less dependent on young launchers who – given the realities of the development of modern baseball – could be more likely to come to the majors and to injure themselves quickly.
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The Dodgers will continue to manage the workload of each launcher with caution, taking up the strategic use of stopping days and starters without an appointment who have become commonplace in recent seasons.
Now, even if they are again bitten by the injury bug, their number of options on the mound should leave them less sensitive to a situation like last year, when the team ended up with only three starters Sains at the start of the playoffs, even after an exchange of key delay for Jack Flaherty.
“It is certainly very important,” said director Dave Roberts, noting that the construction of this year’s pitching staff should give the team more “latitude” to protect the group as a whole.
Already this spring, he has taken into account the decision of the Dodgers to slowly play the accumulation of veteran readers Evan Phillips (who spent the off -season recovering from a tear in his rotator cap) and Michael Kopech (who has Fight against inflammation of the arms during the winter), ready to let the two completely cure their injuries, even if it means that they start the season on the injured list.
The team’s plan to use a starting rotation for six people once Shohei Ohtani is ready to start again to launch should have a similar effect, giving the entire group of beginners more time to recover between outings and a less rigorous workload overall.
Certainly, Friedman and Prior have noted in recent days that it can occur on a calendar of 162 games.
“You look back over the years, we have been as aggressive as anyone in a starter, using days outside,” said Friedman. “It is almost the most opposite way to the risks of managing pitching staff, and it did not work.”
“Unfortunately, it is difficult to script what will happen,” added Prior. “On paper, yes, (our depth) makes it, I think, a little easier. But things happen. So you know, we will see.
But while Dodgers – as well as the rest of the industry – always have important questions to determine when it comes to protecting the health of launchers, the team feels as well as possible on the state of its staff Ultra-profinity entering 2025.
“The addition of leading guys gives you talent,” said Prior, “and at least it increases the word for sure.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
