The Dodgers placed left-hander Anthony Banda on the 15-day injured list with a broken hand yesterday — a surprising move given that there was no prior indication of an injury issue that’d been plaguing the southpaw. As it turns out, Banda’s injury was self-inflicted. Manager Dave Roberts confirmed to the Dodgers beat last night that the lefty sustained a hairline fracture after he hit “a solid object” out of frustration following a rough outing wherein he yielded a pair of runs on three hits in one inning of work during a loss to the Cubs (video link via Dodgers Nation’s Doug McKain). Banda is hardly the first player to injure himself in such a manner, but that surely doesn’t make the scenario any less frustrating for the Dodgers and their fans.
That’s particularly true given that while the 31-year-old Banda is a journeyman who joined the Dodgers in a minor league trade with the Guardians (in exchange for cash), he’s become an important piece of the team’s relief corps. In 47 1/3 innings this year, the former top prospect has notched a career-low 3.23 earned run average with a 24.8% strikeout rate (another career-best mark) against an 8.9% walk rate that’s right in line with the 9% league average among relievers.
Banda initially worked in low-leverage situations after being selected to the 40-man roster in L.A., but he’s earned more trust from Roberts as the season has worn on. He’s picked up nine holds and a pair of saves, nearly all of which have come in the season’s second half. Michael Kopech has emerged as the Dodgers’ highest-leverage arm since being acquired at the trade deadline, but Banda ranks second on the team in holds since the All-Star break.
The Dodgers can still control Banda via arbitration for another three seasons if they choose, so the injury doesn’t necessarily spell the end of his time with the team. It may not even spell the end of his season. Roberts said that for now, the plan is for several days without throwing, but the skipper did not rule out the possibility that Banda could be built back up in time to rejoin the team at some point. Obviously, if the Dodgers go on a deep postseason run, Banda’s chances of contributing again this season will only increase.
There are also questions about another bullpen option’s ability to contribute this year, though they’ve been well documented and don’t come as a huge surprise. Right-hander Tony Gonsolin underwent Tommy John surgery late last August, which always made him a long shot to contribute this season. The Dodgers still haven’t firmly closed the door on the possibility of Gonsolin returning, but it increasingly looks like a long shot. Roberts, who left the door open for a potential bullpen role for Gonsolin when asked about the possibility last month, told reporters yesterday that it’s “unlikely” Gonsolin will contribute this season (link via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic).
General manager Brandon Gomes wouldn’t make a firm declaration, saying Gonsolin’s 2024 status is “TBD” while simultaneously acknowledging that the primary focus at this point is “building a foundation” for next season (X thread via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). That certainly doesn’t sound like a portent for a 2024 return, but Gomes didn’t expressly rule out the possibility, suggesting that if “things line up” they could “have a conversation” about Gonsolin returning.
While things are up in the air regarding Gonsolin’s status, it seems the Dodgers are increasingly optimistic that top starter Tyler Glasnow will return in time for the playoffs. Currently on the injured list with tendinitis in his right elbow, Glasnow threw his full complement of pitches yesterday in his second bullpen session in a week’s time, per Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times. He’ll throw a simulated game on Friday and move to a rehab assignment if that goes well. Via Harris, Roberts said that he liked what he saw in Glasnow’s bullpen session and called it a “priority” to get him back into a big league game before the regular season draws to a close.
If the Dodgers are able to get Glasnow back, they could theoretically head into the playoffs with a rotation including Glasnow, Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who looked excellent in his own return from the injured list this week.
What a rollercoaster?! When/where does it stop?
when Congress gets involved and puts a salary cap on MLB so that rich teams can stop buying players to compensate for their weak farms. the fact that the dodgers spent a billion dollars and the marlins spent 5 million is Ludacris.
The actual word is “ludicrous”.
Ludicrous–for example, describing when the name of an ephemeral being is substituted for a time-honored word-concept.
we’re on a 2000’s baseball forum, not a literary panel…. but go ahead pat yourself on the back lil bro.
inutero stop crying, lil bro. The dodgers farm isn’t weak. Shows what you know.
Inutero
Why on earth should Congress get involved in this?
Put a salary cap on CEO’s? Sure.
If Congress gets involved in baseball salaries in anyway it should be to raise player salaries, not restrict them.
Who gets their salaries capped by law? What’s the purpose of this brilliant suggestion, except to allow the owners to make a lot more money?
The suggestion to totally… ludicrous. Meaning: absurd, ridiculous, asinine.
Not sure who “you” is in this screed but FWIW I believe fans of smaller market teams with owners who pocket their revenue sharing do have a legitimate complaint. Part of it is with the revenue model of MLB, which is indeed broken, and other is with their hometown team owners.
The revenue isn’t shared evenly, not even semi. If I was the king of baseball I’d give equal shares of the game’s revenue to each team and reward them for success instead of failure.
Examples? You mean you don’t know large market teams earn more revenue than small market teams, and that it isn’t anywhere close to equalized? Are we really starting this discussion from that point?
Take away? Rob? Stop? Understanding this “if I was king” exercise starts with knowing that MLB is one business with 30 owners. How they divide the baseball pie is completely up to them. They already decide to share some of the game’s revenue, but not all. This is a choice they make collectively. If they wanted new sharing rules that more equalized the pie splitting, they could do it. Nobody is being robbed now and nobody would be robbed if they changed the revenue sharing arrangement.
But the reality is the large market teams now effectively pay the small market teams to be mostly noncompetitive by guaranteeing their profitability through the revenue sharing they do already, and the CBT. Then they reward the most noncompetitive teams with higher draft picks. So how to you change the incentive? By taking the opposite tack and rewarding success. Award successful teams higher draft picks, and postseason revenues. If you do that, how the teams allocate their share of the game’s revenue doesn’t need to be monitored because you’ve actually incentivized all the team owners to try to win. How they decide is the best way to win is entirely their choice.
Oh, give it a rest.
MLB teams split only part of their media revenues, the part they’ve decided to split. Same with gate. They could split more of it, if they wanted to do it. They simply don’t, that’s all. So there goes your argument about “individuality” — whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
And since you mention measures recently taken to reduce the incentive to tank, this change did not come from MLB, it was a demand of the PA and only reluctantly agreed to by MLB as part of the CBA negotiations. The players know that deliberately tanking teams are bad for the game, and most fans do as well. But not you, apparently. Congratulations.
Nobody has to “determine” if a team is trying to win beyond looking at the standings. Remember those? They tell you who is winning. If every team comes out of the gate with the same amount of money to spend (or at least much closer than it is today) then we as fans get to see who spends it well by who… drumroll…. wins. Wow, what a concept! Winners get rewarded. Losers don’t. Another weird and complicated concept, eh?
No idea why you mention posting. This is the method of selling players between leagues that can’t trade with each other. Since MLB teams already can and do trade players with each other, mentioning posting is beyond irrelevant, it’s kind of silly.
Footnote: I am a fan of a team that benefits heavily from the revenue imbalance because they have the good fortune to play in a huge media market. So my ideas for leveling the playing field for all teams probably hurts my team as much as any. But I still think giving every team an equal chance to compete every year would be good for the game, which is what I care about most. I accept sadly that not everyone else feels this way.
I like Banda but not really into banda.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Banda is only the second player this season to break a hand after punching a wall/table/solid object. It’s such an unnecessary injury in a sea of arm injuries in which all major league pitchers swim.
A’s closer Mason Miller was the other bright light who broke a pinky slamming his hand into a training table.
Two finalists for this year’s Joe Biemel Knucklehead Award.
Yes, yes, yes! I knew the other was a pitcher, too. Good catch!
Bannnda, banda, banda, banda, banda
Pass language in the contract. Anyone hurting themselves by hitting anything is suspended without play until reinstated. Problem Solved. Should include riding dirt bikes during the season too. Remember the SF star picture. Now that I solved this problem, time to move on!
UWP
“Pass language in the contract. Anyone hurting themselves by hitting anything is suspended without play until reinstated. Problem Solved.”
Why are so many people so anti-worker? Oh yeah, capital controls the narrative.
“Anti worker”…I wish people like you felt the same about ordinary people instead of just Hollywood celebrities and celebrity athletes. You’re the biggest phonies in the country.
mlbf
ok, troll.
Back up your accusation. Why do you think I don’t feel that way about “ordinary people”?
Put up or shut up
“Put up or shut up”…I’ve already said what I wanted to say and am not here to have yet another beef with you. I come here for baseball, not political commentary.
You’re the one always making loaded political commentary and I responded to it. Besides, everyone already knows that people like you worship at the altar of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and corporate MSM.
mlbf
Put up or shut up.
Back up this statement
“I wish people like you felt the same about ordinary people instead of just Hollywood celebrities and celebrity athletes. You’re the biggest phonies in the country.”
mlb “fan….You dig yourself deeper with your “always blah blah nonsense.”
Please remember, one uses absolutes and one likely ends up making an inaccurate statement.
That journeyman Anthony Banda reliever…..what a silly “Hollywood celebrity!”
Yeah, that young man who has yet to establish himself as an established MLBer until this year.
I’m sure he regrets doing what he did to hurt himself and seriously dent the LHP bullpen depth of his team.
But why the off-base rant? Your silly terms used indicates why, yet I ask.
@mlb fan That’s hilarious that you would try and say that you don’t come here for political commentary. Your comments are always clearly biased by politics and you by far seem to be the biggest political zealots on here.
Dodger Bro- people aren’t anti worker, most are, however, anti stupidity.
fox471
“most are, however, anti stupidity.”
Ironic, isn’t it
Once again solid objects remain undefeated…
Bo Jackson’s bat would like a word.
No one could break a bat like Bo…
Man I was on the kopech train after 2022, where he had a good season and great talent and even played against Patrick mahomes in his childhood
But if you told me then that his career would fall and then recover as closer of the dodgers… in the span of TWO YEARS
got to give credit to GM Brandon Gomes for getting Kopech and Edman in the same 3 team deadline trade.
Could be given the nickname El Stupido, but I have used that on too many people in the past!
Banda needs to be released. What a selfish, stupid clown.
Thankfully, LAD org does not have irrational types as decision-makers.
Was he trying to swat imaginary spiders or opening a dvd container?
Or play with a drone and stick your finver through the propeller to see what would happen?
Dodgers 2025 rotation candidates
Glasnow – lock
Yamamoto – lock
Ohtani – lock
Kershaw – player option
Stone
Miller
May – return from injury
Gonsolin – return from injury
Sheehan – return from injury
Frasso – return from injury
Knack
Wrobleski
Casparius
Ryan – TJ possible late return in 2025.
Glasnow – lock until injured
Yamamoto – lock until injured
Ohtani – lock until injured
Fixed it for you.
SImm
You’re trolling/negativity is noted. Congrats.
Let’s see Ohtani has already had two TJ surgeries, glasnow is hurt every single year and Yama was hurt in his first season.
That on top of the fact that the dodgers have issues with starters getting hurt.
It’s not a troll it’s a fact.
Simm
It’s a troll.
Ciao
Great response since you can’t defend otherwise.
Simm
“since you can’t defend otherwise.”
This is why it’s obvious that you’re trolling
Why should I “defend” anything? What claim did I make to defend?
Pitchers face a lot of injuries. Yes. The three pitchers you mentioned are all coming off of injuries. Yes.
You’re just here looking to argue. I’ve taken enough of the bait
Don’t mind Simm, they’re just grumpy about restricted list issues and being the little sibling.
no one ever said he had two TJ surgeries. This second one was kept hush hush and called a “procedure” for some reason. That said, the returns are coming back in for a second TJ surgery since it’s pretty new at this point for someone to come back from a second.
grow up
His effectiveness has dropped markedly in the last couple of weeks. I thought he was on the bubble for the playoff roster if every returned from injury.
agreed. he was getting lit up for the last few weeks and losing any confidence he had gained.
Losing Banda hurts
Time to put the Banda back together again.
Dodgers pitching staff is held together by Bandaids.
Bobby Miller blew it off again tonight with 6 ER in 4.1 innings. At this rate, just give the ball to rookies like Ben Casparius. Bobby blew 2 games in a row now, last weeek in Anaheim with 7 ER and tonight
Things are up in the air. And what better place for them?
IL maybe?
It’s those damned things. Now they are up in the air, too. When is someone going to take the thing problem seriously?
Dodgers fans on MLBTR don’t have much of a sense of humor. I wonder if they are like this on other social media portals? It could have to do with always feeling safe and smug that their team will most likely be in the playoffs every season. They don’t have the self-deprecating humor of fans from teams like the Cubs or even the Yankees (lately) who get their hearts gouged out nearly every season.
@ignorant
“Don’t have much of a sense of humor”
It is curious since there is a such an extraordinarily high level of intelligent comedy here
You see it in spurts, in random places. Yeah I suppose it’s a hard thing to measure and highly subjective. I didn’t mean it as a diss or anything.
Oh. It only read that way.
I mean, just deeming any random group of people as lacking in a sense of humor is not inherently a value judgement either way. Any random group of people may not have much of a sense of humor for very valid reasons. And I tried to elucidate that by saying it could be from the Dodgers incessant, constant, annual winning. Never had to build up that dark sense of humor as an antidote to counter cynicism. Plus it’s always sunny in LA.
Got to say, not a sparkling piece of logic in defense of random characterizations of random groups of people. Kurt Vonnegut made up a term for this — he called them granfalloons. He was a great satirist. But I couldn’t possibly find the humor in this because, you know, I’m Dodgers fan and it’s just too sunny in these parts to have a sense of humor.
I was just surmising man. It was not meant to be any sort of hysterical satirical hit piece (and I’m glad you didn’t take it that way.) More speculative I guess…
I guess!
was this an attempt to sound smart?