The Dodgers re-signed Matt Sauer to a minor league contract, per the MLB.com transaction log. He has been assigned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Sauer was on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster last week. Los Angeles designated him for assignment and released him on September 10. It’s not entirely clear why they opted for a release rather than an outright. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that Sauer was nursing some kind of minor injury that made him ineligible to be placed on outright waivers. It’s immaterial now, as he’s back in the system without holding a spot on the 40-man roster.
The 26-year-old Sauer signed an offseason minor league contract and cracked L.A.’s roster for the season-opening Tokyo Series. Sauer has made 10 appearances in a long relief role. He owns a 6.37 ERA with an 18.6% strikeout rate through 29 2/3 innings. A former second-round pick of the Yankees, Sauer has worked out of the rotation in Triple-A. He has allowed just under six earned runs per nine despite serviceable strikeout and walk numbers over 18 appearances.
Unless this is a two-year contract, Sauer will return to minor league free agency at the beginning of the offseason if the Dodgers don’t add him back to the 40-man roster. He could provide relief depth for the final week of the regular season.
The Dodgers hold a 2.5 game lead on the Padres in the NL West. They’re very unlikely to catch the Brewers or Phillies for a top two seed in the National League. That means they’ll need to play in the Wild Card series even if they lock up the division.
It’s possible they secure the #3 spot with a few games remaining on the regular season schedule. There’s only one off day before the Wild Card series begin. That means the Dodgers would probably use lower-leverage arms for their final regular season series in Seattle to have their pitching staff as fresh as possible going into the postseason. That could open an opportunity for a multi-inning arm like Sauer to log some work in the final game or two.
Uhhhhh okay? Why? Nice depth piece, sure, but what will this even do this season? It won’t benefit them, only the Comets.
Assuming he makes it to the main roster again. I’m guessing just to let him pitch in blowout games to rest arms for the postseason.
“That means the Dodgers would probably use lower-leverage arms for their final regular season series in Seattle to have their pitching staff as fresh as possible going into the postseason. That could open an opportunity for a multi-inning arm like Sauer to log some work in the final game or two.”
He can’t be any worse than Kopech. Brought in for the 7th. So far: no outs runners on 1st and 2nd.
Wait are the runners still on base? They must be tired
It’s going to be a sour October for the dodgers
I can’t see him being called up unless there are 4 or 5 injuries. Stewart, Sasaki, and Hurt will likely get looks first and there aren’t that many ways to add pitchers. Yates is an easy DFA, and maybe Kopech. Wrobleski, Dreyer, Henriquez, and maybe Vesia can be optioned, but Roberts has been comfortable relying on then the last few weeks.
Sauer grapes