The Dodgers intend to begin the season with a five-man starting staff, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told reporters (links via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic and Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). While they still intend to eventually move to a six-man rotation, that’ll wait until May.
L.A. had previously indicated they’d run a six-man staff all year. That’d allow Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki to stay close to the schedule they had in Japan, where starters pitch once per week. It’s also designed to avoid overworking a rotation full of pitchers who have notable injury histories. However, the early-season schedule allows skipper Dave Roberts to keep everyone’s workload in check organically.
The Dodgers and Cubs open the regular season with a two-game set at the Tokyo Dome on March 18-19. Los Angeles is expected to turn to Yamamoto and Sasaki, respectively, to pitch in their home country. They then have a week before their domestic season opener, which’ll be on March 27 against Detroit. The schedule builds in an off day on Monday, March 30, followed by days off for each of the next five Thursdays. They have a few stretches of six consecutive game days but won’t play more than that until running 10 straight from May 2-11.
Sticking with a five-man rotation allows them to carry an eighth reliever. Teams are limited to 13 pitchers. As a two-way player, Shohei Ohtani doesn’t count against the limit. He’s still working back from 2023 elbow surgery and last year’s postseason shoulder injury. He’ll be limited to hitting for the first few weeks of the season. Going with a six-man rotation while Ohtani is not pitching would cap them at a seven-man bullpen.
Ohtani could be ready to make his return to the mound at some point in May. That’d align with when the Dodgers are looking to move back to a six-man rotation and would permit them to keep the eight-man bullpen all year. Friedman unsurprisingly said the Dodgers weren’t going to push Ohtani’s recovery just to meet a specific deadline. It’s better to operate with a seven-man bullpen for a while than risk pushing Ohtani’s arm too quickly. The return timetable might line up anyways with when the schedule becomes more demanding.
In the short term, the five-man staff seemingly introduces a camp battle between Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May for one rotation job. The front four will be filled by Yamamoto, Sasaki, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. That’d leave Gonsolin, May, Landon Knack, Bobby Miller, Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius as healthy rotation options.
May has more than five years of service, meaning the Dodgers cannot send him to the minors without his approval. The rest of the back-end starters do have options. Gonsolin would reach the five-year service mark after collecting another 20 days on the MLB roster. At that point, he’d be able to refuse a minor league assignment as well.
If everyone stays healthy during Spring Training, that could push one of May or Gonsolin to the bullpen. An Ohtani return coinciding with the move to a six-man rotation could keep it that way, though it’s likely they’ll have encountered some kind of injury trouble by that point. Roberts said the Dodgers view May and Gonsolin as starters but left open the possibility of kicking one into long relief once the season gets started.
Both pitchers missed the 2024 season to injury. Gonsolin underwent an ill-timed Tommy John surgery in August ’23. May underwent a flexor tendon repair the month before that. He was gearing up for a midseason return last summer before a surprising July announcement that he’d undergone season-ending surgery to repair a tear in his esophagus.
May discussed that scary incident with Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times. The 27-year-old righty said it occurred in a fluke manner while he was having a salad for dinner. A piece of lettuce lodged awkwardly in his throat and ended up piercing his esophagus when he tried to wash it down with a sip of water. May credited his wife Millie with encouraging him to go to the emergency room, where doctors realized the severity of the injury and rushed him into surgery. May told Harris he’s not sure that he would have survived the night had he not had the emergency operation. The column is worth a full read, as May discussed both his offseason trajectory and the perspective he gained from such a harrowing experience.
That is some powerful lettuce. And they say salads are healthy for you.
Maybe it was the Devil’s Lettuce.
All this time I thought he tore it from a bong rip
A piece of lettuce and a glass of water is not the recipe I’d expect for a torn esophagus. Glad he’s okay.
“A piece of lettuce..glass of water”…After careful consideration, some inward thinking and much self reflection, this is the story that Dustin May and his wife decided to go with.
U must be a conspiracy theorist.
Musta been some iceberg, I’ve never seen spinach sink a ship
You better ask Cyndi Lauper about spinach, and don’t ask Popeye.
We all know what little Nicky said about Popeyes chicken! And it’s all because girls just wanna have fun
To me, it makes sense to also use Glasnow and Snell behind Yamamoto and Sasaki in those 2 games. Why not with the next games being over a week later? I thought the same thing last year when Padres and Dodgers opened in Korea.
Throws them off their routine—when do they warm up, for example—given there could be as much as a 45 minute difference between the times you could expect them to enter the game, not to mention all the chaos attending pitching in a foreign country. Snell’s never appeared in relief in the regular season, and just twice in the postseason in 2019; Glasnow not since 2018. Don’t do it.
Also, the Dodgers’ pen is so good it could easily be better than Glasnow and Snell, who you can further expect to be annoyed at being used in relief. It’s probably irksome enough to be behind the rookie in the rotation, though that’s something not too shattering given he’s from Japan and that’s where they’re playing.
There are two exhibition games in Tokyo in addition to the two regular season Cubs games. My guess is Snell and Glasnow get some work there.
Exactly. You have a like a week of spring training between the Japan series and when the season continues. Get them in for a few innings, let them get a ST start and line them up to take the ball the 3rd, 4th, 5th game when season continues.
They’ll get like a week off though until the season continues. They can get into the Japan games, make a start in a spring training game and be lined up to pitch 3rd or 4th game when season continues. I don’t think it’s that crazy.
There’s a deferral joke here somewhere.
We’re all fervently hoping so.
It’s Friday night so add in a gambling/interpreter joke too
“Lettuce alone” with the deferred ability to be funny
Top 100 came through! May must have been deferring the dressing on that lettuce. He learned a hard lesson about dry salads that day indeed.
There’s also a thick thighs joke relating to Ray King in there too, though I can’t pull it from my recesses.
The recesses of your thick thighs?
Does this somehow relate to Wade Boggs’ “wild ride?”
Yes… Yes it does
I deferred it.
I’ll work on the punchline word my word each year, check back.
May learned you can defer salary but you can’t defer mastication.
Well he tried to defer the surgery, but his wife talked him out of it apparently
Deferring a six man rotation
It doesn’t matter what anyone one else does, but what does matter is most certainly what the dodgers do and continue too.
Take notes baseball.
Class has been in Session.
You can learn or you will lose.
Notice HHH Sasaki.
Free $20 if he took it today.
no hate at all he should be the #2 on talent alone. Need to check my email to see if that user reached out. Use that one for mostly eBay notifications. Busy week there in here in between.
Will admit when I’m wrong if I am. Talents not the reason though. He’s the real deal. Still don’t think it’s in stone if the rotations not.
Still think it’s very possible. But it’s wavering. I was 80/20 down. Now I’m 65/35 same stance.
If they don’t know how many arms are in the rotation whose to say sasaki needs to be. He’s an absolute luxury to the best team in baseball
They can afford it and it’s a problem the rest of the league only dreams they could too.
I hope he’s up he absolutely deserves to be. But we’re not playing service time manipulation on a team deferring millions by the minute.
He is #4 once the domestic season starts. He will start game 2 in Tokyo. Of course stuff can happen.
Great luxury for him to have. I think he didn’t need the pressure with the media scrutiny he took in Japan. He slots in over being the man in San Diego, or Toronto.
No guarantees in baseball. Definitely not a sasaki hater. For me he’s as exciting if not more than Darvish was on his transition. Just think there’s major down play over hype train here. Not to say he’s not at minimum a #3 starter on any teams roster. And for me he just screams Santana/Liriano upside.
It’s only $20 though so hit or miss either way. If I lose I lose it’s $20 we can all eat that.
I win I get some pizza and everybody loves pizza. Just no pineapples, mushrooms or anchovies for me. From my years of cooking at Syracuse I really don’t recommend carrots either the kids would touch that stuff haha
You lost the bet.
Did you notice who is expected to start in Japan?
Sure Yoshinobu and Roki in the games that count. There are also 3 exhibition games which we can suppose will involve Snell, Glashow and Gonsolin/ May and/or the depth guys.
I was responding to HHH. I “took” the bet.
Ah. Excuse me Top.
No worries! It makes too much sense for him to be on the opening day roster. The potential of the extra draft pick is big for the Dodgers since they always have to pick so late.
Fair point i do like that look a lot and makes a ton to justify
Seems a little premature to say whose in the rotation final spots before spring training games even start. Everyone could end up being correct, but can we let the competition play out. If Saski doesn’t look ready, they have good options.
Depth for dodgers is unreal. MLB level, minors and heck even their il is debatably better than some rotations today. In a league dying for pitching the dodgers cut Bauer and said hey baseball we don’t need him either.
42days till opening If I’m not mistaken it’s around 40 I know that.
I recognize username but I’ll confirm contact info in email yea absolutely honoring it I just don’t have an access on phone.
You gotta look at it like Mike Tyson. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
You can be a hall of famer too and just as easily get hit by a bus the next day.
Trajectories are weird we lost both Prince Fielder and Kirby Puckett to the hall on this same train of thought.
Wishes luck and chance yes but baseball is also allowing yourself to be okay with defeat and get back up again.
If I’m wrong I’ll admit and pay no worries. Just have that feeling on this and don’t think I’m alone, but in a very small minority yea. I’m extreme out of the box though but I do apply of logic and reason behind it too.
And I am sure you will find it, Sweet.
Forever known as the guy who had a rule changed for him. Oh, and an interpreter that did something.
Yeah that’s what he will be remembered for. Never mind the games.
I think you must mean Buster Posey?
I don’t understand why they thought giving Glasnow that much money was a good idea. Homeboy is brittle. The pitcher the Dodgers traded for him, Ryan Pepiot? Had a better WAR than him last year too.
“I don’t understand” would be the key phrase there.
With the Dodgers inability to keep pitchers healthy, I’m shocked that they’re not going to a six man rotation. I guess they’ll reap what they’ve deferred… I mean sow.
Did you read the article? They have 6 off days in the first 5 weeks. They plan to go to 6 starters in May assuming Shohei is ready then.
Plus as needed they can fill in with Gonsolin or May or Knack or Miller or the pen.
@Kewldude69 It’s not a “6 man rotation,” in any case. It’s a “5 days of rest rotation.” Teams usually avoid letting their #6 pitch if their ace, and then 2-5 depending on how much better those four are than the #6, will be able to go with 5 days of rest.
The point is never to go with 6 starters. It’s to get your best pitchers 5 days rest.
by fWAR, Glasnow was at 3.8 vs Pepiot at 1.9, so twice his value. bWAR was essentially a wash—nobody is going to argue about .2 WAR.
They pitched about the same innings and Glasnow was superior in every way: K rate, BB rate, FIP, even regular old stats like ERA and WHIP had Glasnow as much better.
Pepiot is a good pitcher for sure and might pitch more innings but when they are on the field there is little doubt who has been the superior pitcher.
“If everyone stays healthy during Spring Training,…”
—–Funny.
“…that could push one of May or Gonsolin to the bullpen.”
—–The worst part of this for everyone else is that the Dodgers’ fringe starters, their #s 6 and 7 on the depth chart, had 3.10 and 3.19 ERAs the most recent seasons they pitched in MLB.
And Landon Knack, River Ryan, Gavin Stone, Kyle Hurt all come with expectations and have put up numbers in varying sample sizes that match.
Not to mention Ben Casparius and Bobby Miller, the latter absolutely cratering last year but previously looking like an MLB starter the season before.
Let May and Gonsolin piggyback off of each other to start the season and just wait til one (or both) inevitably get injured
Lettuce is off the menu so they will be fine.
Crazy that May has 5 years of service time and has never struck out 45 guys in a season.
Love watching him pitch so hopefully his fortunes change in the future.
May is a talent. Hope his physical issue and lettuce are behind him. Saw him throw today. Looks good.
The lettuce story was far more interesting than the Dodgers pitching story
There are a lot of vegetables posting here daily.
This is a tragic situation with May! It’s seems obvious to me to that if his salad had been properly tossed this accident wouldn’t have happened. Not sure if he tried to do it himself the apparent injury to his throat seems to indicate that but we may never know.
The lettuce must have been unusually sharp & jagged. Maybe it came directly from a 3D printer. You know they can print anything these days from a 3D-printer; even lettuce.
I thought you had to both pitch and hit during the current or previous season to be a two-way player. Ohtani shouldn’t qualify to start the season, and would have be counted as a pitcher once he starts pitching. Or maybe I am not recalling the rule correctly.
The rule actually used to say you have to qualify during the current or previous season., yes.. but in 2023 they changed it to current or previous 2 seasons quietly without telling anyone… it seems like even the authors here don’t know about that change.
You don’t win friends with salad!
He tried to defer the surgery, but his wife talked him out of it
Great. Now I have to be scared of lettuce.
When did they cap the number of pitchers on the roster? Was that an effort to cut down on in-game pitching changes? Feels like 13 was pretty standard anyway, so how much impact could it have had?
They limited it to 13 several years ago. It happened with the 3 batter minimum to reduce the amount of pitching changes. But you are correct, it was rare teams used more than 14 anyways… but now they can’t. And even in September they are limited to 14 now.
It’s been fun to watch the Dodgers Owners and I’m not even a Dodgers Fan!!! They go after the best quality —- youthful players in baseball and get them!!
High dollar contracts for sure, but through deferments, one major contract doesn’t block the Dodgers from acquiring additional top quality players on the same type of contracts.
The Dodgers have built a World Series caliber contending team that should be there solidly over the next 5-10 years.
Is the photo May? It looks like Justin Turner
I wish we’d see a team go w/a 6-man rotation, and I think the Dodgers with their depth could prove to MLB, it can work!?
What in the world kind of lettuce do they have in California? Seriously, this is weirder than that Cubs reliever a few years back getting hurt putting on his pants lol.
Well since just about all the lettuce in America basically comes from California….