The Dodgers have acquired right-hander Ryan Loutos from the Cardinals in exchange for cash and claimed righty J.P. Feyereisen off waivers from the Diamondbacks, reports Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. The Loutos trade was previously reported by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Dodgers moved righties Blake Treinen and Michael Kopech to the 60-day injured list to open 40-man roster spots for the two pickups.
Loutos, 26, has had a somewhat unusual trajectory to the big leagues, as explored in this profile from Goold last year. Due to his computer science background, the Cards hired him to develop an app to help minor leaguers use data, and let him pitch as well. “I know what I need to do to improve. I know what I could do,” Loutos said. “But I also know from their shoes what they see: ‘OK, let him play for a while. See what happens. Worst-case scenario, we maybe offer him a job in the front office. Best-case scenario, maybe he’s in the big leagues someday.’”
So far, the playing part has worked out okay. He made his major league debut last year, though it was brief. He tossed 2 1/3 scoreless innings over three appearances. From the start of 2023 to the present, he has logged 134 innings on the farm with a 5.10 earned run average, 24.2% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate.
Feyereisen, 32, has a much longer big league track record. In 2021, he tossed 56 innings between the Brewers and Rays with a 2.73 ERA. He managed to top that performance in 2022, tossing 24 1/3 scoreless innings, with a 29.1% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate. However, a shoulder injury intervened and stopped him from building on those numbers.
He underwent shoulder surgery and was traded to the Dodgers ahead of the 2023 season. He hasn’t been able to fully re-establish himself in the majors since then. He eventually spent that entire 2023 season on the IL, not making an official appearance anywhere. The Dodgers shuttled him to Triple-A and back in 2024. He only got to pitch 11 big league innings, with an 8.18 ERA in those. His 5.48 ERA in Triple-A wasn’t especially impressive either.
He was outrighted off the roster last year, allowing him to elect free agency and sign a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks coming into 2025. He got called up a couple of weeks ago after posing a 0.96 ERA in Triple-A. He then allowed two earned runs in two innings for the Snakes before getting designated for assignment and put on waivers.
For the Dodgers, they are likely happy to have some fresh arms, one of which they are already familiar with. With Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow both on the IL due to shoulder inflammation, they are down to a four-man rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. The club is keeping Sasaki and Yamamoto on the weekly schedule the pitchers are accustomed to from their time in Japan.
That situation, plus plenty of other injuries, have led to a great deal of creativity in cobbling the staff together. Pitchers like Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, Bobby Miller and Ben Casparius have made spot starts. Yoendrys Gómez, recently claimed off waivers from the Yankees, is working a long relief role. Both Loutos and Feyereisen have options, so the Dodgers are adding some arms with some roster flexibility. The team is about to start a stretch of playing ten straight games. After one off-day, they will play another nine straight.
To open spots for those two, Kopech and Treinen hit the 60-day IL. Kopech’s move isn’t especially surprising. He’s been on the 15-day IL all year long due to a shoulder impingement and still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Even if he were to start one now, he would need a few weeks as a sort of delayed spring training. He could be reinstated from the IL in a couple of weeks but that doesn’t seem to be likely.
The move for Treinen is more notable. He started the season healthy but landed on the 15-day IL April 19th due to right forearm tightness. This transfer to the 60-day IL indicates the Dodgers don’t expect him back before the middle of June. He is 36 years old, turning 37 in June, and has a recent history of arm injuries. He only tossed five innings in 2022 due to shoulder problems and then underwent surgery which wiped out his 2023 campaign.
He got back on track last year with a 1.93 ERA in 46 2/3 innings, plus another 12 1/3 postseason innings with a 2.19 ERA, helping the Dodgers win the World Series. The team believed in that bounceback enough to give him a two-year, $22MM deal in free agency, the largest deal for a reliever going into his age-37 season or older since Mariano Rivera’s deal with the Yankees back in 2010.
Shortly after Treinen landed on the IL last month, manager Dave Roberts described the injury as a “low-grade sprain of the forearm” and downplayed the severity by saying “we’re in the dodged-a-bullet category.” It’s unclear if Roberts was just masking the extent of the injury or if something changed, but Treinen now appears to be slated for an absence of at least a couple of months.
Photo courtesy of John Geliebter, Imagn Images.
JPF must have photos of Friedman
Lol why do you say that?
Assuming you’re referencing J.P. Feyereisen, he was a stud for Tampa but that was after Friedman joined the Dodgers and sure he wasn’t great last year, but that was only 11 innings
Jk, looked at his walk ratio lol
Chris Taylor and Max Muncy have been passing those photos around. Those guys can strike out every at bat for the whole season and Friedman still wouldn’t cut them.
If that’s the case, then Conforto must have Friedman’s bank account PIN.
Nobody has photos of JPF throwing strikes.
Canon fodder. Neither one of them is likely to be around a month from now.
The Treinen move to the 60-day is a bit of shock though. It hasn’t been announced by the Dodgers yet, so we don’t know why.
Dodgers roster come October is like a box of chocolates….
So true. You never know what you are going to get.
Rebuilding by designating and trading 26yr old pitchers. Makes sense to me.
Typical Mozeliak.
Typical tightwad owner, Billionaire Bill DeWallet, who is Mozeliak’s boss and has final say on anything he does. Moe has done some stupid things ,but I blame DeWallet more than him. With him, it’s all about profits. How often does he show his face at Busch Stadium except for opening day?
You realize the DeWitts are the owner of a business and every business is in the business is making money? Call him tightwad all you want he’s not the only owner saying they aren’t making money and for the most part just trying to break even year in and year out.
Bootlicker
It truly is an arms race…
We entering the age of Casparius. After I saw him recently hitting 98 MPH and holding velocity, I knew he’d be stretched back out. Casey Porter on Dodgers Daily has been saying he should be made back into starter for a while now though.
Cards would seem to be better with Loutos than Munoz on the 40 man; I’d have rather seen Ryan given a 5 game audition before letting him go.. The bullpen needs help, and even if the Cardinals ARE in this reset mode, it might behoove them to make one of ubiquitous ‘acquired for cash’ deals and pick up an arm.
“It’s unclear if Roberts was just masking the extent of the injury or if something changed”
If Dave Roberts has ever made a truthful statement about a pitcher’s health status, it was because he forgot which lie to tell about which pitcher & got confused.