Right-hander Tony Gonsolin became the latest Dodgers pitcher to hit the injured list over the weekend, but an MRI to evaluate his ailing elbow showed that his surgically repaired ulnar collateral ligament is intact, writes Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. Manager Dave Roberts said there’s no timetable yet for Gonsolin to resume throwing. An exact diagnosis of his injury remains unclear.
Even with the uncertain outlook, it’s a sigh of relief for the Dodgers that Gonsolin isn’t facing renewed damage in that UCL. Another tear would’ve sidelined him more than a year and possibly kept him out through the end of the 2026 season. That’d likely have ended Gonsolin’s Dodgers tenure, as he’s owed a raise on a $5.4MM salary this offseason and is only under club control through the 2026 campaign. Any injury that threatens to wipe out significant time in 2026 would result in a non-tender.
The 31-year-old Gonsolin’s return from his 2023 Tommy John procedure has been a mixed bag. He’s pitched in seven big league games this year, looking sharp out of the gate (2.81 ERA, 21-to-4 K/BB ratio in his first 16 innings) before stumbling over his past four trips to the mound. Since May 18, Gonsolin has faced the Angels, Mets (twice) and Yankees. He’s surrendered a combined 15 runs in 20 innings and served up 20 hits with an ugly 17-to-14 K/BB ratio. A whopping seven of those hits have been home runs.
Gonsolin is one of eight starting pitchers on the injured list — a number that doesn’t even include Shohei Ohtani, who’s still working his way back toward a return to the mound. Front-line arms like Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell have barely pitched this year and are on the 60-day IL at the moment. Touted young arms like Emmet Sheehan, River Ryan, Kyle Hurt and Gavin Stone opened the season on the injured list — the first three recovering from 2024 Tommy John procedures and the latter on the mend from a shoulder operation that’s likely to cost him the entire 2025 season. Prized young right-hander Roki Sasaki has been out for a month now due to a shoulder impingement.
At the moment, the Dodgers have a healthy Yoshinobu Yamamoto atop the rotation. He’s followed by franchise icon Clayton Kershaw, right-hander Dustin May and southpaw Justin Wrobleski. Veteran José Ureña is working a multi-inning role in the bullpen but has extensive experience as a starting pitcher. Rotation options down in Triple-A and already on the 40-man roster include Landon Knack, Bobby Miller, Nick Frasso and Matt Sauer. Frasso and Miller have struggled in the minors this year. Knack has been hit hard in seven big league starts. Sauer has been sharp in Triple-A and looked solid in a swingman role during limited MLB time.
Even with that laundry list of injuries, however, general manager Brandon Gomes downplayed his team’s need to go out and acquire starting pitching ahead of next month’s trade deadline. Chatting with Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Gomes stated: “With the information we have, and where the guys are now and progressing, the expectation is we will have all we need in-house.”
There could be some gamesmanship at play there, of course. It’s also notable that those comments came before Gonsolin’s placement on the injured list. Further injury troubles or setbacks for any of their on-mend-arms in the next six weeks can always heighten the need for outside help.
As things stand, the Dodgers do appear to have some near-term help on the horizon. The aforementioned Sheehan is about 13 months removed from his Tommy John surgery and is already on a minor league rehab assignment. He’s made three starts — one in the Rookie-level Complex League and two in Triple-A — and tallied nine innings of one-run ball with 14 strikeouts and just one walk (plus another plunked batter).
Sheehan tossed 57 pitches in his most recent outing on June 7. He’ll presumably need at least one more rehab start — very likely another couple — before he’s an option to rejoin the big league club, but Sheehan is a former top-100 prospect and is still just 25 years old. The right-hander’s 96.3 mph average fastball is actually up a bit from his pre-surgery levels, though it’s worth bearing in mind that he’s still effectively throwing short stints and thus not running into any velocity decline as he turns a lineup over two or three times. Regardless, his rehab work is encouraging, and Sheehan could be an option to help the big league staff before the end of the month.
Dodgers will trade for a front line starter prior to the deadline. They would take Skenes but he will likely be unavailable. Dodgers are in it for a billion dollars in terms of future deferred salary . The investment/ holding company Guggenheim must have them win so they can be sold for a large profit well before those commitments become due . Losing does not fit with those plans.
Those commitments are already due (or will be due in the next year or so). They just go to escrow. It’s not like a decade for now they’ll be at risk of defaulting.
When Ohtani’s tenure in LA is over, so is the Dodgers’ financial obligation.
Exactly. The present value of a deferred contract is deposited into a separate account. They are team-managed (so, not an escrow in the true sense) and are reported to MLB quarterly. The only way the Dodgers can get themselves into trouble with these deferral accounts is if they are unable to make the very modest APR return required by the CBA to cover the payouts. Worst-case scenario is Wilpon with the Mets. He invested deferred salary with Bernie Madoff, who made off with it. Guggenheim manages its own money.
Sort of almost. The way I read it, the team has until 7/1 of the year “following” to fund each year preceding.
So, within 20 days or so, the 2024 amount will be paid into escrow. Meaning, after the contract, they will have about 10 months to fund the last year. And then, it’s over.
I guess nothing keeps them from funding early.
Yes, the start of funding the deferral accounts can be delayed by a year under the CBA rules, but with a multiyear deferral such as Ohtani’s, this is really just a technicality, since once the contributions start, they continue annually thereafter.
And these are not, as I mentioned, escrow accounts. This might seem like a minor distinction, but it is not. The teams hold the money, not a third party, and they can invest it pretty much as they see fit.
Blue – a distinction maybe but I think they are still escrow accounts in that they cannot be co-mingled with other funds of the owner and the owner does not have discretion as to accessing and utilizing said funds (collateral for a loan for example) and thus, the best terminology is likely escrow.
Yes, they can invest them with the intent of placing present day dollars in so those grow to deferred day payment. It’s the usage restrictions that make it an escrow accounts in on behalf of the ultimate recipient.
By definition, escrow accounts are held by a third party. These are more like trust accounts, held by the teams and invested by them in trust for the player, and reported quarterly to MLB. I don’t recall the exact investment parameters allowed by the CBA, but even those can be expanded with the agreement of the player. In Ohtani’s case, I predict some of what they owe him will be converted into an equity share in the Dodgers.
Not really – I have 3 escrow accounts with my firm where I keep client funds separate from my operating funds.
“Those commitments are already.
..When Ohtani’s tenure in LA”..I read in Forbes 2 weeks ago that the Dodgers are expected to gain an additional $2.75+ BILLION dollars in advertising, licensing and sponsorships during the next 10 years of the Ohtani partnership.
When someone goes down, they buy another and defer his contract for the next owner to get stuck with.
Someone needs to learn about the MLB contract deferral process….
Chris Sale, you are a Dodger!
I don’t think Atlanta will trade him this year unless they get an offer they just can’t pass up.
They will want to try and be contenders next season which will likely keep him in Atlanta.
braves25: With the way the Dodgers pitching staff has been dropping like flies the past two years, Sale would almost certainly be on LA’s IL before he even threw a pitch.
Sale and Acuña are both getting traded
I think Ozuna will be the first one traded.
But if you are correct and they trade both Sale and Acuna, then they should trade Murphy, Riley, and Olson also. Do a complete rebuild.
I don’t see that happening though. Ozuna, yes, he will likely be traded. I could see Murphy possibly being traded as well. Iglesias will likely be available also.
I could see all those you mentioned except Riley and Olson their deals are long term n still good players
I think Atl will try to resign Acuna early and see if he will give them a discount. He said he wants to be with 1 team his whole career, so we will see.
I think Riley will be the guy they keep for sure.
I don’t see Gomes’ comments as gamesmanship. The Dodgers have six starters on the IL currently, all of whom they fully expect to pitch again this year. If they go shopping next month (or sooner), it will be for bullpen help.
This “the latest” article is already out of date
How so?
it’s the Dodgers rotation in 2025 Blue, like trying to keep up with news on tariffs.
Who is SP Tuesday night?
Gotta be a Bullpen game Tuesday
Not sure. MLB redesigned the website recently and made this information hard to find.
(I am surprised nobody is complaining about this redesign. It was improved from bad to completely awful.)
I’m frequently amazed about how the official websites for the big american sports leagues manage to be so bad at just giving you basic information about what’s going on in games/the league. MLB.com used to feel a bit better than the other three, but every time they change it it gets worse ;_;
The Dodgers say that now, but I can see them being in on a starter down the line. Things can change in a month.
I don’t see the Dodgers in first place this time next week.
Of course you don’t.
He’s too busy digglin his dicker to see 1st place.
Right now the Padres can only win by throwing a shutout and they’ve thrown a league leading 12 this year. But that doesn’t seem a likely outcome against LA.
SF’s offense is just as bad. So I predict SF won’t be in 1st place by next Monday morning.
Generally agree that they need bullpen reinforcements, but I have my doubts that even if Glasnow returns at some point he doesn’t make it thru the season. Fragile in unexpected ways.
Think they should be calling the Brewers on Civale or Quintana but don’t it they wanna keep all their young talent down in the minors until they are 27 or 28 so they can’t even have a career.
They have a dozen or so starters and have issues running a solid 5 while the Mets host nothing more than a three slot pitcher at best and manage to have the best ERA in the NL and second overall. Go figure.
Well then why did 56,934 comments on this site say explicitly “Mets need an ace”?
Kodai Senga
Clay Holmes
Sean Manaea
To be fair, the way commenters have been describing the Dodgers and their boogeyman billion-dollar payroll and deferrals, they thought they’d be undefeated at this point of the season when they’re at 39-27. Go figure.
The IL manipulation continues…
Brandon Gomes has a private chat on Telegram with Billy Eppler
“Today’s Dodger’s starting pitcher will be Bill Higgins of section C, row 12, seat #132.”
Poor Dodger’s I guess 500 million dollar payroll isn’t enough.
“Poor Dodgers..500 million”…People complain when teams spend money and also complain when they don’t spend money. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s no wonder teams often just ignore their fans.
Couldn’t be happening to a more deserving team! The baseball gods are cruel but fair and this is what you get for buying championships. Meanwhile if you like torture or thought you did 15 years ago as a Giants fan then boy are you in for a treat these last few weeks watching the Giants fight and claw their way back to within one game. All of the top 3 teams in the NL have reasons to be happy with where they are as well as frustrated whether you’re the Padres, Giants, or smurfs. Should make for a really entertaining next 4 months of baseball
they had pitching injuries last season and the gods cursed them with a WS title
If the Rangers don’t turn things around, quickly, I can see Mahle in a different uniform.
I’m guessing Glasnow comes back for a couple games and then something else falls off and costs him the season. He’s just that guy. Thought the 5 innings and out would be doable with him but he’s getting cramps, numbness, elbows and shoulders. Did the have a back injury once? Snell, I think will be okay once he’s over whatever ails him right now. Sasaki is a concern since his concern is throwing 100mph again. I never thought Emmet Sheehan and possibly River Ryan at a later date would be the saviors of the rotation, but here we are.
Yamamoto, Kershaw, Sheehan, and Sasaki is good enough and add a healthy Snell and they’ll be just fine. Keep Glasnow and late in the year, Ryan, and they’ll be just fine. Hurt is out there, too.
Anyone but Bobby Miller….
The Dodgers will sometimes outsmart themselves. Case in point, trading a good, cheap, healthy young starting pitcher in Pepiot for an expensive, fragile and always injured Tyler Glasnow.
Glasnow was their ace last season even though he didn’t pitch in October he still helped them a ton. Pepiot walks too many guys and doesn’t strike out enough
That trade was huge for the Dodgers last year, and Glasnow was a solid contributor so I dont think you’ve made a solid case at all. If the Dodgers were a welfare team like the Rays then money would be a significant factor, but they are not. Four months remain in the regular season, Glasnow may yet be a solid contributor in ’25.
Seriously, what do the Dodgers do to starting pitchers to have such an extreme level of injuries? Is it just because they trade for, sign, and draft hard throwers who always are TJ risk or do they misuse their guys, especially at the major league issue?
Yamamoto last year, Glasnow, Snell, Sasaki, Sheehan, Ryan, Stone, Hurt, Kopech, Yates, Miller’s shoulder, and May the last couple of years… If healthy, that is the most insanely great pitching staff that I can recall. Why has it been so unhealthy?
Dodgers are basically load managing their rotation, and taking advantage of IL rules.
They can do that when they spend hundreds of millions more than the rest of the league.
Sport is broken.