6:29pm: MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick tweets that the expectation is that Buehler will return to the club Saturday and serve as 26th man in the Dodgers’ doubleheader against the Giants, starting one of the two games.
5:41pm: The Dodgers announced tonight that they’ve added veteran right-hander Daniel Hudson to the 40-man roster and brought him up to the Majors. Top prospect Walker Buehler, who tossed five shutout innings for the Dodgers yesterday, was optioned to clear a spot on the 25-man roster. Los Angeles had 39 players on its 40-man roster prior to adding Hudson, so no corresponding 40-man move was necessary.
The veteran Hudson joined the Dodgers on a minor league pact back on April 2 after being cut loose by the Rays at the end of Spring Training. Tampa Bay will be responsible for paying the bulk of Hudson’s $5.5MM salary, with the Dodgers owing him only the pro-rated league minimum for time spent on the big league roster.
Hudson, 31, is coming off a mediocre season with the Pirates, during which he totaled 61 2/3 innings and averaged 9.6 K/9 against 4.8 BB/9 with 1.0 HR/9 en route to a 4.38 ERA. He’s demonstrated impressive velocity since moving to the bullpen after his second Tommy John surgery, and while Hudson has shown flashes of brilliance over the past three seasons, the aggregate results have been fairly pedestrian.
Hudson opened the season with 4 2/3 shutout innings early in Triple-A, and the Dodgers will hope to catch lightning in a bottle with him in similar fashion to the manner in which they struck gold on Brandon Morrow last year. Of course, L.A. isn’t shy about quick roster turnover, so if another roster need arises, it’s also possible that Hudson’s stay with the team will be an abbreviated one.
[Related: Los Angeles Dodgers depth chart]
Buehler, 23, will head back to the minors and continue to work in the rotation, though it stands to reason that he’ll likely be back with the Dodgers later this year. The former first-rounder (24th, 2015) is generally regarded as one of the game’s elite pitching prospects but still has just a total of 36 innings at the Triple-A level under his belt (in addition to 14 1/3 MLB frames). Rich Hill tossed a four-inning simulated game today and will rejoin the rotation Monday (Twitter link via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times) so there’s no long-term spot in the rotation for Buehler to occupy. When Hill returns, he’ll join Clayton Kershaw, Alex Wood, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Kenta Maeda in the starting five.
Still Befuddled Hudson got Pirates Dickerson..
Hudson was released by the Rays after yielding nine earned runs in 5 1/3 innings in the Grapefruit League.
Sure, he could do better with a change of scenery and Dodgers are a great team regardless of their record.
It all comes down to middle infield prospect, Tristan Gray. Regardless of however Daniel Hudson does with the Dodgers, and Corey Dickerson with Pirates.
I feel like this is one of those trades that look bad initially, and could turn out great because of the prospect.
Agree. I saw him in a couple of ST games and he stood out with a pretty swing and easy pop.
Thank you Johnny SuperScout
Huh? Did you change your name Kid?
Tristan Gray doesn’t even crack the top 30 prospects for the Rays. So either the Rays are loaded or your dreaming. Not to mention being 22 in A ball and hitting .197 in 15 games with a .197 OBP
Is that bad?
Sincerely,
Tim Tebow
Does that use on option on Buehler or no?
Just looking for clarification on the option rules.
He was optioned to Triple-A out of Spring Training, so they’d already used an option on him this year. Being optioned at any point in a season counts as “using an option,” and a player can only burn one option per season.
The Dodgers could shuttle Buehler between Triple-A and the Majors 10 more times this season, and it’d be no different than if they’d just optioned him to Triple-A out of camp and never recalled him in terms of his remaining options.
I have been wondering, and can’t find it anywhere, but, in the case of the 26th man for a doubleheader, is an option burnt if the player hasn’t been optioned out of spotlight training or at all that year?
Thank you for clearing that up. I knew it had something to do with option years, but I did not know much else. Its great how you guys read and answer comments on here.
no. You get “option years” — or the amount of years you can be optioned in. Since he was optioned to start the season, his “option year” was already used, so they can flip flop him from AAA to MLB all year with no penalty.
Buehler
I’m not a fan of this move. Why not keep Buehler big league club and cut Hudson loose?
Cut Baez and keep Hudson!
Yeah. I sure don’t understand using Baez in the 9th inning of a tied home game when you’ve got Jansen already warming in the pen. I was at that crummy game last night and when Hudson was announced you could see the question marks floating up from the seats. Daniel who? Knowing this FO’s affinity making whiplash roster moves I always check here before getting in my car for the drive to the stadium, but this one apparently was announced no more than an hour before game time. It was so late and abrupt Hudson’s name didn’t even appear on the scoreboard lineup card, just his number. Altogether, another “what gives?” moment at Dodger Stadium.