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Dodgers Place Kirby Yates On Injured List

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The Dodgers announced that they have placed right-hander Kirby Yates on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to September 21st, due to a right hamstring strain. That is the corresponding move for fellow righty Roki Sasaki to be reinstated from the IL, a move that was reported yesterday. Manager Dave Roberts previously passed the news along to reporters, including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.

Yates, 38, signed a one-year deal, $13MM deal with the Dodgers coming into the year. He was coming off an excellent 2024 season with the Rangers wherein he posted a 1.17 earned run average over 61 appearances.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers haven’t gotten anywhere near that level of production in 2025. Yates went on the IL in mid-May due to a right hamstring strain and missed about three weeks. He also missed about three weeks in August due to lower back pain, so this will be his third IL stint of the year. Around those IL trips, he has tossed 41 1/3 innings for the Dodgers with a 5.23 ERA. His 29.2% strikeout rate is actually quite good but he’s been undone by the long ball, having allowed nine this year.

In a sense, his poor results make this not a huge loss. Many people on the internet are even convinced it’s a phantom IL stint just to get him out of the way. But almost every member of the Dodger bullpen has been struggling lately. Dodger relievers have a collective 5.69 ERA in the month of September, which is better than just four clubs in the majors. With guys like Michael Kopech and Brock Stewart also having been placed on the IL lately, the club surely doesn’t want to be losing more arms, even the ones that are currently struggling.

The Dodgers have a good chance at winning the National League West but probably won’t be able to catch the Phillies for a first-round bye. They will likely have to play the Wild Card round without Yates. He could perhaps be reinstated for the NLDS but he would have to get healthy and give the Dodgers the impression he is worthy of a roster spot by then.

Photo courtesy of Kiyoshi Mio, Imagn Images

Dodgers To Activate Roki Sasaki From Injured List

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Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki is set to rejoin the team on Wednesday. He’s expected to be activated from the 60-day IL after missing more than four months with a shoulder impingement. Sasaki will work out of the bullpen, manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Sonja Chen of MLB.com). Los Angeles already has an open 40-man roster spot after waiving Chuckie Robinson over the weekend, so they’ll only need to make an active roster move.

Sasaki hit the IL on May 9 with the shoulder issue. He made seven appearances on his rehab assignment, posting a 6.10 ERA across 20 2/3 innings with Triple-A Oklahoma City. Sasaki initially worked as a starter during his minor league stint but appeared in relief in his final two outings. He tossed a pair of scoreless, hitless innings as a reliever, notching three strikeouts.

It’s been a challenging season for Sasaki in his first taste of big-league action. The NPB import has scuffled to a 4.72 ERA across eight MLB starts. The underlying metrics are even worse, with Sasaki recording an unsightly 5.88 SIERA and a 6.38 xERA. Shaky control was the main culprit. Sasaki had nearly as many walks (22) as strikeouts (24) over 34 1/3 innings. His massive 14.3% walk rate is more than double his worst season with the Chiba Lotte Marines (7.1% in 2024). The shoulder injury could’ve affected Sasaki’s command, though the 13.7% BB% during his rehab assignment doesn’t suggest much improvement.

Sasaki will have five days to make his case for the postseason roster. Los Angeles could certainly use another viable option in the bullpen. The Dodgers rank 20th in bullpen ERA on the season, and they’ve slipped to 25th in September. Michael Kopech is back on the IL, this time with knee inflammation. Tanner Scott has a 7.27 ERA and a pair of blown saves since returning from an elbow injury. Blake Treinen melted down again on Sunday against San Francisco. The veteran has allowed three earned runs on three occasions in September alone after allowing multiple runs just three times in 2024. A few decent showings from Sasaki out of the bullpen could be enough to earn him a spot on the playoff squad.

With the Dodgers boasting a largely healthy stable of starters to close the season, a return to the rotation wasn’t an option for Sasaki. Blake Snell returned in early August after dealing with his own shoulder injury, joining mainstays Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. Los Angeles has gotten passable contributions from Clayton Kershaw in what will be his final season, plus a breakout year from Emmet Sheehan. With Shohei Ohtani back on the mound and regularly tossing five innings, there wasn’t any room for Sasaki. The Dodgers will likely pare down their six-man rotation in the postseason, leaving even fewer opportunities for Sasaki to function as a starter.

Kershaw’s departure will open one rotation spot in 2026, though Sasaki will have plenty of competition to fill the job. Kyle Hurt and River Ryan should return after both underwent Tommy John surgery in 2024. Gavin Stone could be back in the mix after shoulder surgery last October. Ben Casparius and Landon Knack are hanging around in the minors. And of course, the deep-pocketed Dodgers will likely be contenders for the top arms on the free agent market.

Braves Claim Chuckie Robinson

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The Braves have claimed Chuckie Robinson off waivers from the Dodgers, according to a report from David O’Brien of The Athletic. Robinson was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett rather than added to the active roster, and right-hander Daysbel Herandnez was transferred to the 60-day injured list to make room for Robinson on the 40-man roster.

Robinson, 30, has just 52 games in the majors under his belt since he made his big league debut with the Reds back in 2022. It’s not hard to see why he hasn’t gotten much playing time in the majors to this point, as he’s a career .131/.161/.192 hitter in the big leagues across 138 plate appearances. That performance leaves him with a wRC+ of -4, meaning that he’s been 104% worse than a league average hitter at the plate. While the standards for offensive contributions from catchers are less rigorous than they are for other positions on the diamond, Robinsion is a non-factor at the plate even by the standards set by pitchers in the years prior to the NL adopting the DH rule.

Given his lackluster offensive abilities, it might seem like a shock that Robinson would get any sort of attention at the big league level at all. He carves out a niche for himself by being an extremely well-regarded defender behind the plate. He’s considered a strong game caller and even was heralded by Baseball America as a top defensive catcher back in 2020. That elite glove has been enough to make Robinson a fairly attractive candidate to be a fill-in depth catcher behind a given club’s regular tandem. This year, Robinson broke into the majors with the Dodgers because Will Smith and Dalton Rushing were both injured, leaving Robinson to join Ben Rortvedt in the club’s catching tandem for a time. He similarly helped to fill in for injured starting catcher Tyler Stephenson with the Reds during his debut season of 2022.

Now that Robinson is in Atlanta, it seems likely he’ll be tasked with helping to back up Drake Baldwin and Sandy Leon for the last few weeks of the season. The Braves have one of the best catching tandems in baseball when healthy, with Baldwin and Sean Murphy sharing time behind the plate, but Murphy recently underwent surgery that left the club without a third-string catcher behind Leon on the 40-man roster. Had Leon or Baldwin suffered an injury, the Braves would’ve been forced to turn to Jason Delay (who is not currently on the 40-man roster) or find an option outside the organization. It’s unclear if the Braves have interest in keeping Robinson in the fold in some capacity headed into the offseason or if he’s simply a fill-in depth piece brought in to help shore up the catcher position while Murphy is rehabbing. Even if that ends up being the case, Robinson’s strong defensive reputation should make it fairly easy to find a minor league deal with one organization or another.

Will Smith Suffering From Hairline Fracture In Hand

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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) today that catcher Will Smith had undergone additional scans following his placement on the injured list last week, and that testing revealed a hairline fracture in Smith’s injured hand. The news makes it “doubtful,” in Roberts’s words, that he’ll play again during the regular season this year. More concerning is that whether or not Smith will be available for the start of the playoffs remains “up in the air.” 

Smith, who made his third All-Star game earlier this year, enjoyed a career season with the Dodgers this year as he hit .296/404/.497 with a 152 wRC+ in 110 games. He swatted 17 homers and paired a decent 20.4% strikeout rate with an elite 14.7% walk rate to emerge as one of the league’s top on-base threats, and between his impressive offense and solid defense behind the plate put together 4.1 fWAR in just 436 trips to the plate.

Arguably the best right-handed hitter in the Dodgers’ lineup this year thanks to Mookie Betts’s tough first half this year, losing Smith for any part of the postseason would be a crushing blow for the Dodgers. Since his first full 162-game season in 2021, Smith has averaged 126 games played a year and is a fixture of the L.A. lineup with more innings caught over the past five years than anyone other than J.T. Realmuto. Smith’s combination of durability and excellence allowed the Dodgers to not worry much about the quality of their catching depth this year, so much so that they even designated longtime backup Austin Barnes for assignment back in May to make room on the roster for unproven youngster Dalton Rushing.

Rushing has not taken to the big leagues in his part-time role, and has slashed just .184/.246/.288 with a wRC+ of 49 and a 39.1% strikeout rate across 47 games in the majors. Rushing’s combination of lackluster offense and unimpressive defense behind the plate have seemingly left the Dodgers without much confidence in his ability to handle the jump from little-used backup to potential playoff starter, and as a result of that Roberts indicated today that Ben Rortvedt instead be tasked with serving as the Dodgers’ primary catcher while Smith is out of commission.

Just five days shy from his 28th birthday, Rortvedt turned in a respectable enough season with the Rays last year but this year has hit just .165/.250/.196 in 39 games between L.A. and Tampa. It’s a performance that offers virtually no reason for optimism about his ability to contribute offensively, but Rortvedt is a very well-regarded game caller who gets solid marks from advanced metrics for his glove behind the plate. That solid defense should help create a higher floor than Rushing could provide for a Dodgers team that will need to rely on a bullpen that has looked shaky in recent weeks to preserve any leads passed to them by an elite starting rotation. With that said, it would of course be preferable if Smith’s bat could take some pressure off Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman to carry the offense headed into the playoffs.

Dodgers Place Michael Kopech On 15-Day Injured List

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The Dodgers announced that right-hander Michael Kopech has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his right knee.  Righty Will Klein was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

Klein’s locker in the clubhouse was noted by several L.A. beat writers earlier today, leading to speculation that Kopech was going to be sidelined since manager Dave Roberts said yesterday that Kopech was playing at less than 100 percent.  Kopech addressed his situation with MLB.com’s Sonja Chen and other reporters, noting that his command was being impacted by “a couple different things right now” and not just his knee soreness.

The reliever also noted that he has had difficulty performing given the stop-and-start nature of his injury-plagued season.  Kopech has tossed only 11 innings in 2025 due to a pair of stints on the 60-day injured list — one due to a shoulder impingement, and another due to a prior bout of knee inflammation.  While the righty has a 2.45 ERA over his 11 frames, Kopech is clearly not himself, issuing 13 walks against 12 strikeouts.

Given the timing of the IL placement, Kopech’s regular season is now officially over, and his availability for both a first-round playoff series (and the playoffs in general) now seems in question.  Roberts hopes that resting Kopech now will get him healthy for the postseason, and described Kopech as “pitchable” right now, but the Dodgers felt it was wiser to give the right-hander some time off now with a playoff berth already clinched.

Even if Kopech is fully healthy, it is anyone’s guess as to how he might pitch in October.  As much as the Dodgers might be tempted to go with another arm for their playoff roster, it was just a year ago that Kopech was one of the key figures in the team’s World Series run.  After Kopech was acquired from the White Sox at the trade deadline, he posted a 1.13 ERA over 24 regular-season innings for Los Angeles, and then posted a 3.00 across 10 playoff innings.

Clayton Kershaw To Retire After 2025 Season

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Left-hander Clayton Kershaw is going to retire as a player after the current campaign, per an announcement from the Dodgers. His final regular season start at Dodger Stadium will be on Friday.

“On behalf of the Dodgers, I congratulate Clayton on a fabulous career and thank him for the many moments he gave to Dodger fans and baseball fans everywhere, as well as for all of his profound charitable endeavors,” said Mark Walter, owner and chairman of the Dodgers, in a club press release. “His is a truly legendary career, one that we know will lead to his induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

In the next few weeks, Kershaw will be wrapping up a surefire Hall-of-Fame career. He will have spent the entirety of that span with one club, an increasingly rare phenomenon in today’s game. The Dodgers selected him with the seventh overall pick back in 2006 and he’s never been a part of any other franchise.

Kershaw was up in the majors by 2008 and he had a solid enough debut season. He tossed 107 2/3 innings for the Dodgers that year, allowing 4.26 earned runs per nine. He took a big step forward the following year, with a 2.79 ERA in 171 frames. There was another step forward in terms of workload in 2010, as he got up to 204 1/3 innings, with a 2.91 ERA.

From there, he kicked off the strongest stretch of his career and one of the best of any pitcher in the modern era. From 2011 to 2015, he tossed at least 227 innings in four of those five campaigns. The lone exception was 2014, where a shoulder strain limited him to 198 1/3 innings. For that five-year span, he tossed 1,128 innings with a 2.11 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate and 47.4% ground ball rate. FanGraphs credited with 37.1 wins above replacement for that span, more than seven wins per season. That was easily the most in the majors for that stretch. Félix Hernández was second with 26.2 fWAR.

From there, injuries limited Kershaw’s production in terms of quantity, but the quality was still there. He never again hit 180 innings in a season, with back problems being a recurring theme, but still kept his ERA in the 2.00 to 3.00 range most of the time. Though it was a step down from his peak, he tossed 140-180 frames in each season from 2016 to 2019, never finishing with an ERA higher than 3.03. He made ten starts with a 2.16 ERA in the shortened 2020 season.

Kershaw’s run as one of the best pitchers alive, often the very best, coincided with a golden age for the franchise. It’s hard to believe now, as the Dodgers have been so consistently good lately, but they were spinning their wheels for a while in the earlier parts of this millenium. They didn’t make the playoff in the 1997 to 2003 seasons, mostly hovering around .500. Things improved a bit from there but still weren’t amazing. They made the playoffs in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2009, but then missed in three straight years from 2010 to 2012.

But they made the playoffs in 2013 and have continued to do so in every season since then. Assuming they eventually clinch a spot here in 2025, it will be 13 seasons in a row. There was a lot of playoff heartbreak in there but the Dodgers did win it all in 2020 and again in 2024.

More recently, Kershaw’s injury absences have become more pronounced as he has pushed into his late-30s. He was limited to 120-130 innings in the 2021 to 2023 campaigns, though still with good results on a rate basis. He only made seven starts last year, initially held back by offseason shoulder surgery before later having his season finished by dual surgeries on his toe and knee to repair a ruptured plantar plate and a torn meniscus.

He’s been able to get back to health here in 2025 and go out on a decent note. His strikeout rate is way down to 17% but he has managed to post a 3.53 ERA in 102 innings. As mentioned, he’ll be making another start tomorrow and could perhaps take the ball once more as the Dodgers finish the season with a six-game road trip.

Kershaw became a free agent a few times and occasionally seemed to flirt with the idea of signing with his hometown Rangers, but he always ended up back with the Dodgers. His first significant payday was back in 2014, when he and the Dodgers agreed to a seven-year, $215MM extension. That’s still the largest guarantee given to a pitcher on an extension. Only six free agent deals for pitchers (Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Max Fried, David Price) have surpassed that guarantee.

That deal allowed Kershaw to opt out after 2018, which he did, but he and the Dodgers agreed to a new pact. A three-year, $91MM deal covering the 2019 to 2021 seasons kept him in Los Angeles and was the first time a pitcher hit the $30MM mark in terms of average annual value. His subsequent deals were more modest one- or two-year pacts as he seemed to go year-to-year with deciding whether or not he wanted to keep going.

Kershaw’s career numbers aren’t final yet because he still has at least one more game to go. As of today, he has 2,844 2/3 innings under this belt with a 2.54 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate and 46.7% ground ball rate. He has tallied 222 wins and 96 losses, 25 complete games, 15 shutouts and 3,039 total punchouts. FanGraphs credits him with 78.7 WAR with Baseball Reference at 80.4. He also tossed 194 1/3 postseasons innings, though with a 4.49 ERA.

He made 11 All-Star teams and won three Cy Young awards. He was the National League Most Valuable Player in 2014, a rare feat for a pitcher. He also tossed a no-hitter that year. He won the World Series in 2020 and 2024, though he was on the injured list during the second of those titles. MLBTR salutes Kershaw on an excellent career and wishes him the best for his post-playing days.

Photos courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Neville E. Guard, Imagn Images

Dodgers Re-Sign Matt Sauer To Minor League Deal

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The Dodgers re-signed Matt Sauer to a minor league contract, per the MLB.com transaction log. He has been assigned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Sauer was on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster last week. Los Angeles designated him for assignment and released him on September 10. It’s not entirely clear why they opted for a release rather than an outright. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that Sauer was nursing some kind of minor injury that made him ineligible to be placed on outright waivers. It’s immaterial now, as he’s back in the system without holding a spot on the 40-man roster.

The 26-year-old Sauer signed an offseason minor league contract and cracked L.A.’s roster for the season-opening Tokyo Series. Sauer has made 10 appearances in a long relief role. He owns a 6.37 ERA with an 18.6% strikeout rate through 29 2/3 innings. A former second-round pick of the Yankees, Sauer has worked out of the rotation in Triple-A. He has allowed just under six earned runs per nine despite serviceable strikeout and walk numbers over 18 appearances.

Unless this is a two-year contract, Sauer will return to minor league free agency at the beginning of the offseason if the Dodgers don’t add him back to the 40-man roster. He could provide relief depth for the final week of the regular season.

The Dodgers hold a 2.5 game lead on the Padres in the NL West. They’re very unlikely to catch the Brewers or Phillies for a top two seed in the National League. That means they’ll need to play in the Wild Card series even if they lock up the division.

It’s possible they secure the #3 spot with a few games remaining on the regular season schedule. There’s only one off day before the Wild Card series begin. That means the Dodgers would probably use lower-leverage arms for their final regular season series in Seattle to have their pitching staff as fresh as possible going into the postseason. That could open an opportunity for a multi-inning arm like Sauer to log some work in the final game or two.

Roberts: Roki Sasaki “Open” To Pitching In Relief

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Roki Sasaki has been on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City for 31 days now, meaning that he would normally need to be activated from the injured list or pulled off his rehab assignment today. That’s not the case in this instance, however, as manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya) on Friday that Sasaki dealt with “a calf situation” during his rehab that extended the time he could be allowed to spend in Triple-A. He’ll make at least one more start in the minors, per Roberts, at which point it’s possible he’ll move back into pitching in MLB games.

Sasaki, 23, was perhaps the single most coveted free agent available last offseason after he made the decision to be posted for MLB clubs early. Sasaki’s decision meant that clubs couldn’t spend more than the sum of their international bonus pool money in order to lure the right-hander into signing a contract with them, meaning that virtually every team in baseball got involved in the Sasaki sweepstakes. The Dodgers ultimately came out on top, and while many at the time thought they had just locked up an ace for pennies on the dollar Sasaki has struggled in his first season stateside.

The right-hander posted a 4.72 ERA in eight starts for the Dodgers while walking (22) nearly as many batters as he struck out (24) before being placed on the injured list with a shoulder impingement back in May. He’s been sidelined ever since, and after he made his first rehab start at Triple-A on August 14 he’s not shown many signs of improvement. Those 18 2/3 innings of work with Oklahoma City have seen him pitch to a 6.75 ERA. While his 13.6% walk rate and 18.2% walk rate are both marginal improvements over his numbers in the big leagues, they’re still far below par in terms of command and not close to what one would expect from someone with Sasaki’s electric stuff.

Talented as the youngster is, it’s fair to wonder at this point whether the Dodgers would really be best served having Sasaki start big league games in the middle of a pennant race that figures to go down to the wire. Roberts didn’t specifically state what role Sasaki would take up upon returning to the big league club, but he did note that his “impression” is that Sasaki would be open to pitching in relief for the team if that’s what the club requires. With some combination of Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto exceedingly likely to make up the Dodgers’ postseason rotation anyway, perhaps Sasaki could benefit from moving to the bullpen and focusing on maximizing his stuff in shorter bursts.

If Sasaki can prove to be effective in a relief role, that could be a huge relief for the Dodgers headed into the postseason given the struggles key relief arms like Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and even Blake Treinen have faced this year. With those late-inning veterans scuffling, the Dodgers already seem likely to rely more on young, talented hurlers like Alex Vesia and Jack Dreyer in high leverage situations moving forward. It would be a massive boon for the Dodgers if Sasaki can be part of that mix headed into the playoffs.

Dodgers Place Will Smith On Injured List

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The Dodgers announced this evening that they’ve placed catcher Will Smith on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to September 10, due to a right hand contusion. Catcher Chuckie Robinson was recalled to replace Smith on the active roster.

Smith, 30, has enjoyed a career year with the Dodgers this season as he’s hit .296/404/.497 and landed his third consecutive All-Star appearance. Unfortunately, he was struck by a foul ball on his throwing hand on September 3. He sat out for nearly a week before he returned on September 9, but he hasn’t appeared in a game since. Manager Dave Roberts had previously described the issue as a matter of pain tolerance for Smith, as his ailing hand won’t heal before the end of the year at this point.

That seemed to suggest that Smith and the Dodgers were ready to have him play through the injury while talking days off when possible, but Roberts today told reporters (including Sonja Chen of MLB.com) that “not enough improvement”  has occurred in Smith’s ability to play at this point to continue giving him a spot on the roster and playing without a true backup catcher. Dalton Rushing is already on the injured list due to a shin contusion, which meant that third-string catcher Ben Rortvedt was the only option on the roster who was available in recent days.

Now that Smith has been placed on the shelf, there was room to get Rortvedt some help in the form of Robinson. Robinson has just 51 games in the big leagues to his name, and in that time has hit just .132/.170/.194 with a career wRC+ of -3, meaning he’s 103% worse than a league average hitter. It’s hardly a robust offensive profile, but he’s a very well-regarded defender and his right-handed bat could pair with Rortvedt’s lefty bat to form something of a platoon behind the plate, though neither player is offering much with the bat from either side of the plate.

Solid as Robinson and Rortvedt are defensively, it goes without saying that another week without Smith is a major blow to the Dodgers. He’s arguably been second only to Shohei Ohtani as the team’s most important player this year, and without him impacting the club on both sides of the ball everyday it’s been difficult for the Dodgers to lock up the NL West this September even while the Padres have gone 6-12 over their last 18 games. Surely, L.A.’s lead would be much larger than 2.5 games at this point if they had Smith in the middle of the lineup alongside Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.

That makes losing Smith for at least another week a tough pill to swallow, but at this point the Dodgers seem to view it as a necessary sacrifice in order to get Smith as healthy as possible in time for the start of the postseason. The Dodgers have just a 6.8% chance of clinching a bye through the Wild Card series according to Fangraphs, which means that Smith won’t get a substantial break between the regular season and the postseason to rest. The remaining regular season games are far less important than that three-game Wild Card set coming up in October, so it’s understandable that the Dodgers would be prioritizing getting Smith ready for that series at all costs at this point.

Given the nagging, day-to-day nature of Smith’s injury, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him activated after a minimum stay on the injured list. With that being said, it’s possible the Dodgers will want to give him as much time to heal up as possible over the final two weeks of the regular season, so perhaps they’ll take a more careful route with him and wait to bring him back until it’s time for him to tune up ahead of the postseason.

Dodgers Release Matt Sauer

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The Dodgers released right-hander Matt Sauer yesterday, according to the transactions tracker on Sauer’s MLB.com profile page. He had been designated for assignment by Los Angeles last week.

Sauer, 26, was a second-round pick by the Yankees back in 2017 but didn’t make his major league debut until last year as a member of the Royals after being plucked from the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft. He made 14 appearances for Kansas City last year but struggled to a 7.71 ERA in that time. He walked (11) more opponents than he struck out (9) and surrendered three homers in just 16 1/3 innings of work. That lackluster work led the Royals to return Sauer to the Yankees in May of last year, and he split the remainder of the season between the Double- and Triple-A levels before electing free agency during the offseason.

That led him to join the Dodgers on a minor league deal back in December, and despite long odds to make the Opening Day roster given Los Angeles’s crowded bullpen mix, he actually managed to grab a seat on the plane to Tokyo for the club’s opening series against the Cubs after striking out eight batters during Spring Training against just one walk. Sauer did not appear in the Tokyo Series but went on to serve in an up-and-down role with the Dodgers this year, shuttling between the majors and Triple-A Oklahoma City when the Dodgers were in need of an extra arm.

He looked quite good in that role through the end of May, with a 3.05 ERA and 4.21 FIP in 20 2/3 innings of work across seven appearances, but things took a turn for the worse when he rejoined the club in June. Sauer was shelled to the tune of nine runs on 13 hits and three walks while striking out six in 4 2/3 innings of work against the Padres on June 10. That disastrous outing ballooned his ERA to 5.68, and he’s gone on to pitch just two more times for the Dodgers this year after that as he allowed five runs in 4 1/3 innings of work. In 29 2/3 innings of work across ten games total in the majors this year, he posted a 6.32 ERA despite solid enough peripheral numbers, including a 4.24 xFIP and a 4.02 SIERA.

Sauer’s lackluster strikeout rate in the majors this year and tendency to allow home runs limited his effectiveness in the majors, but he did show the ability to be a competent long reliever with three-, four-, and even five-inning relief appearances where he was generally effective. Given that Sauer has options remaining and has shown the ability to pitch in all sorts of roles over the years, perhaps another team will give him a chance and see if they can help him unlock the sort of consistency he wasn’t able to find with the Royals, Yankees, or Dodgers.

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