While warming up in advance of a simulated game on Friday, Tyler Glasnow felt “discomfort” in his right arm, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett and other reporters. Glasnow will undergo testing this weekend to see if any structural issues are present, and “I just know we’re going to re-assess and see how he feels over the coming days, see where we can pick up throwing again,” Roberts said.
Even in the best-case scenario of a clean MRI, there’s still plenty of uncertainty over what this setback means for Glasnow’s chances of a return. The regular season ends just over two weeks’ time, and while the Dodgers are a virtual lock to make the playoffs, it is far from a certainty whether or not Glasnow will be fully healthy and ramped up in time to join a postseason roster. The minor league season ends next weekend and it therefore seems unlikely Glasnow will be ready for a rehab assignment, so he’d have to rely on simulated games or other types of prep work that don’t involve a proper in-game setting.
Elbow tendinitis has kept Glasnow from pitching since August 11, cutting short a quality season that had seen the right-hander post a 3.49 ERA and an outstanding 32.2% strikeout rate over 134 innings. As Plunkett notes, 109 of those innings came before Glasnow was placed on the 15-day IL in early July due to lower back soreness, and the righty returned from that injury to make four starts before he was sidelined with his elbow issue.
Glasnow’s lengthy injury history is well-documented, and his 134 innings already represents a career high over his nine MLB seasons. In regards to his elbow specifically, Glasnow had a Tommy John surgery in 2021 that cost him almost all of his 2022 campaign with the Rays, save for two regular-season games and a playoff appearance. An oblique strain then delayed the start of his 2023 season by two months, but he otherwise stayed healthy and posted a 3.53 ERA in 120 innings for Tampa. This performance inspired the Dodgers to both acquire Glasnow in a major offseason trade, and also to sign him to a $136.5MM extension that runs through the 2028 season.
In the more immediate term, of course, Los Angeles faces the prospect of not having Glasnow available for his first postseason in Dodger Blue. Yesterday’s news is an unfortunate continuation of the pitching injuries that have hampered the Dodgers all season, as 17 different pitchers have made at least one start for the club in 2024.
At present, L.A.’s rotation consists of Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller, and Landon Knack. Beyond Glasnow, Roberts said Gavin Stone (on the IL since August 31 due to right shoulder inflammation) will start a throwing program this weekend but Stone’s timeline is still uncertain. Tony Gonsolin will make his second minor league rehab start on Sunday he works his way back from Tommy John surgery, though Roberts previously downplayed the chances of Gonsolin returning in time for regular-season work or any playoff availability. Clayton Kershaw is throwing off a portable mound but is still being bothered by the bone spur in his big left toe.
Given all of the question marks the Dodgers’ pitching staff faces as the postseason approaches, Roberts raised a bit of a stir in an interview on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM when he implied there was a slim possibility Shohei Ohtani could pitch in the playoffs. Ohtani underwent UCL surgery almost exactly one year ago and wasn’t expected to return to pitching until 2025, though he started to throw as part of his established rehab plan.
Roberts revisited the topic in speaking with Plunkett and company yesterday, noting that while “it’s not a zero percent chance” that Ohtani is available to pitch, “the odds of it coming to pass are very slim.” The Dodgers haven’t yet even talked with Ohtani about pitching in 2024, and Roberts noted that “the conversation would be, ’put it out of your head.’ ” Obviously the club doesn’t want to do anything that will jeopardize Ohtani’s long-term pitching future, or even do anything that would impact his availability as a hitter for at least this year’s playoffs.
They’ll be fine. You don’t need as many starters in the playoffs anyway and that top three is as good or better than most teams have.
Ohtani won’t be pitching this year, nor should he.
Who’s their 3rd? Buehler and Miller have been atrocious this year. Not beating the Phils with that rotation in a best of 7 series
I don’t even think they will get out of the division series with that rotation. Plus you usually need 4 starters in the deeper rounds.
Yeah, Nola was a real ace last night against the Dbacks
I meant Mets, not Dbacks
They weren’t going to beat the Phillies anyway, rotation not withstanding. Despite a decent lineup, Phillies always have a deep bullpen, which means a lot in the postseason.
yeah, that Phillies bullpen protected that 11 run deficit to the Mets so the lineup could do it’s work.
I don’t know about that. With a full lineup and healthy rotation and bullpen the Dodgers would have been favorites. MLB playoffs is a crapshoot so we’ll see. When you lose a significant frontline SP it sure does diminish your chances.
I’m probably a little guilty of misdirecting the conversation here by being sarcastic above. Just pissed as a Padres fan that the Phillies went belly up on the Mets.
On paper if fully healthy, sure LA looked scary. So did the Braves. Truth is right now there are 7 teams that can win the NL pennant and be quite deserving if they do.
Lmao it’s like you haven’t watched the last 2 playoffs. The 2023 Braves won one playoff game. Favorites mean absolutely nothing anymore
Like I said MLB playoffs are a crapshoot but I’d prefer to be the favorites. Meaning having the best team. Sure the best teams don’t always win these mini-tournaments we call MLB playoffs. I liked the Dodgers chances very much with Glasnow. Even without him they should have a much better chance than last year, when the Dodgers had zero impactful SPs. This year they at least have 2.
None of that will matter if Betts and Freeman go M.I.A. again. IMO.
There’s always a chance. Anything can happen on a small sample. But at least they have Ohtani this year less JDM. Net net they should have a comparable lineup vs last year if not better, but the SP better. And chances of Betts/Freeman completely not showing up again likely low. We’ll see.
Win or lose, I;ll be in front of the TV rooting them on. Go Dodgers!
It’s not a crapshoot. You build rosters to either increase your odds to make the playoffs or in the case of the LAD to play deep into October. In that regard and in particular with their staff have perpetually failed. Pairing such a staff with this particular manager is another failure.
You don’t think a five game series is a crapshoot after playing 162? It’s one of the most ridiculous things in professional sports. That’s an extended four game series. Shtty teams can beat the best teams in a four game series. What makes you think that a playoff team can’t do the same in one five game series.
My point is simple, LAD build regular season rosters instead of October rosters. 2020* is a complete outlier, rosters built by this front office aren’t built to win a full regular season AND October, they never ever had the requisite pitching unless that season is only 60 games.
It’s not just Glasnow, however he is symbolic of every staff put together by Friedman. At the beginning of the year you looked at that staff and though how are they going to manage everyone’s workloads given no one was stretch out and that was just the regular season.
Pitching and defense win in October, the ability to grind runs wins in October, deep high leverage bullpens win in October. Good pitching beats good hitting in October. This formula for roster building is not a secret yet isn’t followed by this LAD front office ever and they have the World Series parades to show for it.
Can’t fire Friedman without triggering Ohtani’s opt out yet the LAD front office is a literally Einstein’s definition of insanity their whole tenure
That’s a narrative not filled with facts. The Dodgers always do well in regular season because they’ve had by far the best depth across their MLB rosters and talent available in the minors. But yes, depth doesn’t help you as much in playoffs as there is less need for depth. That does take away the Dodgers’ most important advantage in postseason. That doesn’t mean that the Dodgers haven’t had the roster to win it all. Ludicrous. Outside of last year I’ve never came into postseason (in recent years) thinking that the Dodgers didn’t have the roster to make a deep run. Last year they didn’t have good SP and why I didn’t feel good about postseason. But never did I think Betts/Freeman were going to go almost hitless for entire postseason. That I do chalk up to randomness.
Not winning in postseason has nothing to do with not having a roster built for postseason. The reality is that there are different types of teams that win the WS every year. It’s not pitching and defense only. Sometimes it’s great hitting teams, sometimes it’s not. Same for pitching and defense. Thus my crapshoot comment.
Now, as I said it sure does help to have three impactful SPs but it doesn’t mean you can’t win with only two or only one.
Except that the Dodgers have been going with 5 days rest for their SPs all season long. Are they going to remove that strategy in playoffs? I don’t know but seems risky to deviate from something you’ve been doing all season. You’re going to need more starters than you think. 4 SPs at the minimum, possibly 5.
This is why every person said the rays won the trade. By default they won, throw on top the 2 players they got and it’s really not close
“Rays won the trade..It’s really not close”…When you factor in the money paid to Glasnow and the cheap team control gained by the Rays, the Rays did win the trade. But then the Rays seem to “win” 85% of their trades. My advice is be careful when you trade with the Tamp Bay Rays.
While the saying gets thrown around quite a bit, in this case I think the Dodgers more or less knew what they were getting though. The fact that this years 134 innings is his career high out of 9 seasons, even liking what they saw out of last year, it’d of been kind of foolish to expect that he’d go from 8 seasons of injury problems to a full season of health.
“More or less knew”…Yep. True that.
BB
“The fact that this years 134 innings”
He’s exceeded that between the majors and minors
Twice ever, and not by much. That’s a good track record? He’s only thrown more than 150 IPs once in his lifetime. And yeah, didn’t make it to 160 IPs. Let that sink in. I’m puzzled that the Dodgers gave him a longer term contract.
Okay but this is horrible thinking lol. Throw big money at a guy to pitch half the year and miss the most important part of the season? That’s valueless to me.
In this day and age, any time you trade a pitcher with more than 600 strikeouts on his odometer, you’ve probably won.
It’s a good thing they won that trade, because they’ve been getting taken to the cleaners these past few years in all their other big trades.
Lmao 2 trades at most. Wow
Would I rather have an injured Glasnow, who has been worth 2.2 WAR this season on a 5-year contract that pays an average of $27M annually or a healthy Pepiot, who is making the MLB minimum this year and has been worth 1.7 WAR? I would take the healthier, cheaper, still decently effective pitcher obviously.
If the Dodgers were envisioning Glasnow’s higher strikeout rate playing up in the playoffs, I can imagine why they would prefer him to the more unproven Pepiot, but that whole plan goes up in smoke if your guy isn’t available to pitch in the post season.
I agree. I hated this trade from the beginning and then even more when they gave him all that money. And to your point about the playoff experience, Glasnow has been terrible in playoffs…it’s a fact. I remember the Dodgers thrashing him in the WS.
Dodgers get too cute for their own good at times. Everything in Glasnow’s past said stay away. Not due to lack of ability but rather lack of staying healthy. But the Dodgers had to play that card, and gambled with his checkered injury history. They thought load management and days rest would prevent injuries. Glasnow made only one start in less than at least five days rest all year and only made more than 100 pitches three times all year. And he still got hurt. His track record is worse than Kershaw post-2015 and that’s not good for that contract or the Dodgers.
And this is Pepiot’s first full season and has been having an excellent season. Can’t wait for the future
This was the risk they took when they acquired Glasnow. Fortunately they have a lot more money than anybody else so they should theoretically be able to absorb this loss.
Of course he did.
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I don’t know why players agents that represent pitchers don’t get together and push some sort of public investigation as to why pitchers are getting injured regularly. TJ surgeries ae no longer an epidemic, but now the new normal. Batting averages are down to ridiculous levels and continue to sink each year. The percentage of balls put in play by batters per pitch sinks even faster than the batting averages. Their clients are playing Russian Roulette with their careers every time they .throw a pitch.
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Then we can talk about why games last so long, but it’s OK because scoreboards play loud music and play eye-catching videos on multi-million dollar screens to entertain those sitting around scarfing up gourmet food which creates more and more revenues for teams. These aren’t sporting events – they’re theme parks.
Hopefully this won’t result in another surgery. Injuries is never good in this sport whether it was your favorite player or player that you loathe that get injured.
Someone above left this comment
“These aren’t sporting events – they’re theme parks”
I’ve been to MLB games, games in Europe, games in Latin America and just went to games in Japan, Korea and Taiwan
I found MLB games to be the most boring.
I found the atmosphere in the Asian leagues to be off the charts more fun than MLB. There was a sporting event on the field. But what was going on with the fans – synchronized cheers to music played over the PA – is what made the difference.
MLB could learn a thing or two
Someone should also see if there are definitively more injuries than before, or if things might more awareness and better testing just make it seem that way.
“I found MLB games to be the most boring”
Stop watching games. Bad enough we are subjected to reading your comments, let alone attending games you deem boring. No, if you can’t enjoy the game and need outside distractions, you are the problem.
i_h
“you are the problem.”
How am *I* the problem?
How does my preferring NPB, KBO, and CPBL games affect anything at all?
“Stop watching games”
Nah. I’ll keep watching
“How am I the problem?”
Are you new? Or do you still struggle with literacy? You said you find baseball boring.
Stop lying about watching KBO, NPB and CPBL. Not once have you shown baseball IQ to suggest you watch intensely or with any interest. If you did you’d be smarter than settling into being DodgerTroll.
Stop talking.
i_h
“Or do you still struggle with literacy?”
Since we are going to sling insults: Since you struggle with basic logic
“You said you find baseball boring.”
False
Also, even if I had said that, how would me finding baseball boring make me the problem
“Stop lying about watching KBO, NPB and CPBL. ”
Your attempted insults are lies
Is Bobby Miller still really called a starter? 8.17 ERA seems like an ineffective play right now. Its extremely rare he get past inning 5
left and right handed batters are equally batting .291 against him
Glasnow lucky signed 5 year @ 27m per season just in time before he goes on a year long hiatus with TJ
This trade and extension never made sense to me given dudes proven lack of durability
Next CBA meeting, they’ll be discussing paying pitchers strictly on an innings-pitched basis. It’s gotten to the point where, if I were a GM, I would be really careful about dealing for a pitcher or signing him to a massive contract. Just bring them up, let them pitch for 3 or 4 years and trade them.
What a complete fantasy.
But it is my fantasy, Tattoo.
“Caught in a landslide, no escape for reality.”
Literally what the Rays do bring ‘em up for a few years they get good trade up for new ones don’t pay the soon to be broken
Guy’s more of a bullpen pitcher than a starter.
I don’t have a issue with the Glasnow trade & I’m a Rays fan. Getting 2 cheaper controllable players back is the Rays way of doing things anyways.
Back in my day discomfort meant get some bengay on it cause you got to make sure your arm can plow the field for harvest in the fall. Ol mort cooper pitched 252 innings and then went and tended to his farm that fall.
Mort Cooper was a great ball player and a better man, had the privilege of knowing him personally. Saw him pitch many of innings laboring just to get through, but he knew that old good for nothing bag of bones they called a manager southworth would put him on the first train to the Texas league if he even thought about complaining about being sore.
Going into October with another broke rotation. Try to fix it again this winter. If only Friedman realized that even if Lambos look great, they end up sitting in the shop for repairs all the time. smh….
Oh no! What will they do? Good thing they bought 35 other superstar pitchers to make up for it not to mention three purchased ringers at the top of their lineup.
Pretty terrible news. Chances of winning WS just went down significantly. Dodgers probably the WS favorites with a front three of Flaherty, Yamamoto and Glasnow plus whoever is remaining as #4. Now they’ll have to scrape two more SPs from an undesirable list.
Glasnow’s career postseason ERA is almost 6.00. That is after 10 starts, so not just a small sample size. So, maybe not as a big a loss as we think. Now, if Buehler can get right……….
10 starts is still a pretty small sample size IMO. I’ve never been a big believer of chokers/clutch in playoffs due to the small sample sizes. Not saying it doesn’t exist but I think in most cases the sample sizes are too small. 6.00 ERA or not I’d rather have Glasnow in postseason, especially versus the alternatives.
SF
“That is after 10 starts, so not just a small sample size. ”
Definitely a small sample. A sample doesn’t magically become large enough just because you say it is
10 starts in postseason is a small sample? So, it’s a small sample size because you say so? What would you consider ample enough? No matter, he has been terrible in postseason. Or are you going to say that’s not a fact either?
Shrute
“10 starts in postseason is a small sample?”
Yes. For most statistics. Just like 10 starts in season is a small sample. But it’s worse in the playoffs because those 10 starts are spread out over multiple years.
“So, it’s a small sample size because you say so?
No. Samples aren’t big or small because someone says so. That’s not at all how it works.
Since you don’t have enough understanding to discuss this knowledgeably, I’m not going to waste my time.
If you want to know more about samples and statistics, then there is plenty of information available.
Here’s an article from FanGraphs that should help
library.fangraphs.com/the-beginners-guide-to-sampl…
You could also look at some basic primers on statistics. Say, wikipédia
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_size_determination
If after getting yourself a bit more up to speed on the topic, you want to continue, I’ll be happy to engage. I’m not interested in arguing with your ignorance.
“he has been terrible in postseason”
Depends
He has an increased walk rate and deceased k rate. But, based on those metrics (which are more meaningful in smaller samples) he’s still been good. The biggest problem has been an increased HR/FB rate – one of the flukier stats that needs a much larger sample to be meaningful.
ERA- 135
FIP- 118
xFIP- 95
The better the metric, the better he looks.
Lmbo, ok.
Shrute
Take, and comprehend, a math and science class beyond middle school then we can talk.
Again, your ignorance on the topic doesn’t make you correct.
Because you don’t know that you’re wrong doesn’t mean that you’re not wrong.
Whether one of Kershaw and Stone is available will be important. Knack is an ok 4th.
We have only the best doctors on this site.
BSLS
To say nothing of the soothsayers
it’s a soothload
Nobody what happens someone will claim to have predicted it. This makes them good at predictions.
This talk of Ohtani pitching in the offseason seemingly came up only because one beat reporter, Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, asked Roberts about it. He then wrote a rather silly column about how this just had to happen, seemingly not taking in anything Roberts said in response. A non-zero chance? That makes it a story! NOT.
This is exactly why I wasn’t a big fan of the Glasnow trade, and then the extension. There are guys who get hurt once in a while and then there is Glasnow. Yeah it’s the new norm for pitchers but Glasnow’s checkered injury history was a no go for me. You need guys that you can rely on for October.
Okay. Next man up. Dodgers have a lot of those. More than last year and I suspect they’ll have even more next year.
Yoshi & Jack and pray for rain
(for those old enough to recall Spahn & Sain…)
Spahn and Burdette and hope it’s wet.
What do you get when you trade for a pitcher with a history of injuries and then quickly give him $127m?
You get what you deserve.
$27m per year paper mache….
Glasnow is who he is. The Dodgers knew this would most likely happen when they traded for him. Yamamoto, Stone, Buehler and Miller/Knack for the playoffs I’m guessing if Glasnow doesn’t return?
Gmen:
So you figure Flaherty is not worthy of a spot?
Overlooked him 100% won’t even lie to you. Flaherty, Yamamoto and Stone as the top three sounds a lot better