The Dodgers expect to purchase the contract of top pitching prospect Julio Urias for his MLB debut on Friday, per a club announcement. It appears that the club is waiting to officially make the move until it’s necessary to do so tomorrow.
Urias will take the start that had been scheduled for Alex Wood. The 25-year-old southpaw will be bumped to Monday after experiencing triceps soreness. While any injuries to the rotation would have been a major concern just weeks ago, this one seems to be minor. And the reinforcements are arriving for Los Angeles, with Hyun-jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy moving toward major league readiness.
Of course, Urias is rather an interesting player to turn to in his own right — and not just because of his fascinating personal story. He’s just 19 years old, meaning he’ll be the youngest player in the majors upon his arrival. The left-hander has ascended the ladder quickly after signing for a relative pittance out of Mexico at 16 years of age.
That’s also exceedingly youthful for the Triple-A level, but age hasn’t stopped Urias from dominating all along the way. He’s been as good as advertised at the highest level of the minors, spinning 41 innings of 1.10 ERA pitching. Urias has recorded more strikeouts (44) than he’s allowed baserunners (24 hits, eight walks, one HBP) on the season.
Entering the year, Urias was viewed as one of the game’s very best prospects, and he’s only increased his stock since. In its prospect handbook, Baseball America praises him for an exceedingly rare “combination of stuff and feel for pitching.” Working off of a mid-nineties heater, he can draw swings and misses with a quality curve and change piece as well as a less-frequently-deployed slider.
It remains to be seen, though, how much of an impact Urias will have on the major league season. Los Angeles has carefully managed the young lefty’s workload, which is obviously not surprising. He’s yet to top 90 innings in a full season, and likely won’t be allowed to dramatically increase that tally, though surely L.A. will be looking to build his endurance.
The teams plans remain largely unknown. With Ryu, McCarthy, and other options soon to be added to the mix, the Dodgers could get a few starts from Urias and then shift him to the pen — where he could be a powerful, multi-inning option to pair with one or more of the team’s rehabbing or less-productive starters. Or, of course, he might well soon end up back in the minors to continue working out of the rotation.
If Urias is able to stay up the rest of the way, he’d stand to accumulate 129 days of service. That would put him on track to be a potential, but far from certain, Super Two candidate — at least assuming he opens on the major league roster in 2017. Urias’s performance could also certainly impact the organization’s trade deadline and post-season pitching plans. For now, though, we’ll all sit back and watch the phenom show his stuff on the game’s biggest stage.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Must See TV.
Time to go look up a scouting report, but based on his stats…this should be a lot of fun to watch. I hope he gets shelled. #LGM
Nice. Is this your act, or are you just rehearsing?
If you’ve never seen a Julio Urias scouting report, you don’t follow baseball very closely.
I doubt he can shelled as hard as Matt Harvey gets shelled.
People like you are why Mets fans are becoming the most hated fanbase in the MLB.
Really? But I’m a Red Sox fan and I’ve been told that we’re the most hated. And remember, Yankees fan were irrationally hated for a long time just because they were winning all the time.
Meanwhile, Cubs fans wanted to kill Steve Bartman and dodgers fans almost did kill a giants fan… But yea, those mets fans are evil, because reasons.
I’m not sure what your rational is- they don’t exactly know baseball, but they’re pretty tame compared to some fanbases. And they haven’t exactly been perennial winners or anything, so…
Side note… Giants fans DID kill a Dodger fan just outside ATT after a game a couple years back. Stabbed him. He was the son of a longtime Dodger Stadium employee. Didn’t get near the coverage the Dodger Stadium incident did.
Wow,
hojostache hopes that the opposing pitcher is hit hard. Horrible, just horrible.
He’ll be on such a tight inning limit (60 or less?) that he won’t be relevant in fantasy baseball for very long. He’ll be useful for beating up the Padres pretty good, but in an even year guarantee that the Giants will win it all anyway, why take chances with this kid?
That’s original………go away
Um . . . You want me to go away because I’m right?
Great for the game, best of luck to the kid. Now let’s get Glasnow to the bigs, too.
Both Glasnow and Taillon, who skipped his last AAA start, will be called after the super 2 cutoff. Unlike Urias they will be able to pitch longer through the season since Urias will be limited to 130 innings at most. If the Dodgers bring him along right, and Urias shows no signs of soreness/fatigue, he should be able to pitch 170 innings next year and hit 200 after that.
I expect this to be an emergency only call up.
Short term perhaps but apparently not an emergency. At this point the Dodgers are saying they wanted to give Wood an extra day off. If he doesn’t start on Monday then maybe it was. In any case if Urias gets more than two starts before being sent back down I’d be surprised.
short term call up. He’s probably on a 120 inning count this year. Also, with Boras as his agent, we don’t want to start his FA clock until he’s ready to pitch at least 180 innings. So the plan has to be to keep him in the minors this year, bring him up in May of 2017 to push off FA an additional year, and then step on the gas (200 innings per year) until FA when he’s 26.
I’ve been waiting for this, but I’m not sure I like the timing. Not only is he starting in NYC, but anti-Utley guy will be out in droves. What is the 19-year-old supposed to do when deGrom plunks him to lead off the game? A nice debut against the Padres would have been smarter.
Why would deGrom hit Urias? Urias wasn’t even on the postseason roster at the time…if they are going to hit anyone it’s going to be Utley or one of their better hitters…not a 19 year old pitcher. The Mets would be sending the wrong message if they chose to retaliate by hitting Urias.
I meant Utley. Urias isn’t going to lead off the game. Utley will if the Dodgers stick with their normal lineup against righties.
He was talking about Utley getting hit. What would Urias be hitting leadoff?
The Dodgers and Mets have already played each other this year. It was a nonevent. The players are totally over this, only some fans want to keep it alive.
They’re in NY this time. Hopefully nothing will come of it. But I continue to hear Met announcers refer to the slide as dirty, so…
Fortunately neither the fans nor the announcers are on the field. All that really matters is that the players, coaches and especially the managers are not in on the grudge.
Very stoked to watch him finally. Hopefully he proves himself and when Wood comes back to the rotation you keep him for the bullpen. Send down Hatcher. When Ryu comes back send down Baez. Put Bullsinger in the pen. That would fix the starting and bullpen a lot I think
Not going to happen especially if they want him to start next year. He’s finally getting stretched out. It’s nice to get his feet wet. He may be in he bullpen towards the end of the year but no chance he stays up.
Never know. We shall see.
Very excited to watch this kid pitch. It is going to be a while before he is a full season starter though. 2018 at the very least!
His ETA is 2017. He was signed at 16 years old so he’s really a minor league veteran already. Still a kid chronologically though so they will have to be careful with him.
Check my work on this but I believe Urias will be the youngest starting pitching debut since Edwin Jackson, who pitched his first major league game on his 20th birthday.
King Felix was over 100 days younger, but it doesn’t really matter. He is very young and just needs to show his stuff. Hopefully they pull him after 5 or 6 innings no matter what. When Strasbourg was striking out everyone his first summer the nationals just kept letting him go longer and longer…..
Right you are, even a little more than that. Hernandez was 19 years 4 months when he debuted and Urias will be 19 years 9 months old. Youngest since Hernandez then.
King Felix was younger
This is about winning this year, but also has to be about the future. he’s probably on a 120 inning count this year. Maybe 180 next year tops. We need to make sure that he doesn’t come up until we’re ready to get full value for him, since Boras is going to take him to FA as soon as he can.
I think Urias starts off strong for the first 3 or 4 innings then I think he gives up a couple runs and they pull him. Next time we will see him is a few years
No all things the same he’s a back end started mid next year.
Always interesting to see a young player debuting before they can legally buy their own beer. Heard a lot of good things about this kid, I’m definitely waiting to see how he does in the majors.
Meanwhile, I think the time has come for Zach Lee to return to football.
I would think they’d like to send him down for at least a short stint, which would ensure he misses Super 2. Do it in such a way that they keep his innings pretty low. Like let him start a couple/few games now, pen him for a couple weeks, send him down for a couple weeks to for a couple short starts to keep him somewhat in a starting groove, bring him back up for pen duty, then start him again at the end of the season playoffs is he seems way more effective than the other starters and his innings have been kept pretty low.
Alex Wood… 25 year old veteran?
Relative to Urias! I guess I could stand to tweak that.
Nineteen is awfully young.
Guess that was a real short term call up haha