The Dodgers are among several teams that have been showing early interest in free agent reliever Raisel Iglesias, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com. Romero noted earlier in the day that talks on the relief market have been active at the GM Meetings, so much so that there could be some early movement.
Iglesias, who’ll turn 36 in January, has spent the past three and a half seasons closing games in Atlanta. He originally signed a four-year, $58MM with the Angels but was dumped off to the Braves just a few months into that contract after the ’22 Halos got out to an awful start.
The 2025 season began in rocky fashion for Iglesias. While he was still missing bats and limiting walks early in the year, he was wildly and uncharacteristically homer-prone. Iglesias allowed seven round-trippers through his first 24 innings (2.63 HR/9) en route to a grisly 6.75 ERA. He looked to be potentially on his way to a lost season, but the former All-Star not only righted the ship in early June — he went on to pitch as one of MLB’s most effective relievers the rest of the way.
In his final 43 1/3 innings, Iglesias posted a dominant 1.25 earned run average. He punched out 30.4% of his opponents in that time and issued walks at a tidy 6.3% clip. The home run pendulum swung in the other direction, as he yielded just one long ball from June 9 onward (0.21 HR/9).
It was a season of extremes, but Iglesias finished the year with a strong 3.21 ERA, a 27.4% strikeout rate, a 6% walk rate and a 1.07 HR/9 mark. All of those rate stats are loosely in line with his career marks. His 14.7% swinging-strike rate on the season is down a bit from previous years but still several percentage points north of average (tied for 26th among 147 qualified relievers in 2025).
A lack of bullpen depth nearly cost the Dodgers in the World Series. They advanced through the first few rounds of postseason play on the back of dominant starting pitching from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow, which helped to mask a bullpen that was hampered by injuries to relievers like Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol, Brock Stewart and Tanner Scott (who had a disappointing first year in Los Angeles overall). Roki Sasaki stepped up as a vital late-inning arm, and the club got terrific work out of lefty Alex Vesia as well — at least until a family emergency kept him from appearing in the World Series. In the end, with everything on the line, it was Yamamoto recording the final out — just one day after tossing 96 pitches in a Game 6 start.
As such, it’s hardly a surprise to see the Dodgers linked to some high-profile bullpen arms in the early stages of the offseason. In addition to Iglesias, they’ve already been tied to Devin Williams. With the length of Iglesias’ contract likely capped by age in a way that’s not the case with Williams, Iglesias seems a likelier candidate to sign early in the offseason. Signing Iglesias certainly wouldn’t preclude the deep-pocketed Dodgers for other significant investments in the bullpen, but he’d be a quick first step to deepening a relief corps that felt too thin throughout the playoffs.

Why not Diaz? Or someone from Japan??
Diaz wants a much bigger deal than Iglesias.
I’m sure they will take a look at every available option, which is all this article really indicates. With so many relief arms (presumably) coming off the IL next year I wouldn’t expect a lot of high profile bullpen signings. One, maybe.
This would have been better 4 years ago
Guy sucks now
Dude’s last 3 seasons are a 2.75, 1.95 and 3.21 ERA… I would hardly classify him in the “sucks” category.
ERA sucks as a metric
3.31, 76
3.38, 83
3.78, 92
xFIP and xFIP- last 3 years
Getting pretty close to average
Average would not imply sucks… would’ve been accurate to say he’s no longer elite lol
I didn’t say he sucks
I said ERA sucks
Please not another 36 yr old arm.
That’s exactly the type they’ll target to replace Yates. A veteran they’ll put in high leverage early on while they slowly bring up the kids. If the vet passes the tests while remaining healthy all year he’ll be on the October roster.
LA has tons of youth arms who need opportunities. Sheehan/Sasaki are probably going to piggyback or 1 work as swingman/IL replacement starter. Dreyer, Casparius deserve innings and often pitch more than 1 at a time. River Ryan, Kyle Hurt, Gavin Stone should all be back at AAA with bounce back candidates like Frasso and Bobby Miller. Short term vet RP is exactly what the dodgers should be targeting.
Agreed. But a short term life span not so much.
6+ ERA in the postseason. No thank you.
Okay, a small sample size ERA against what are usually top tier offenses in the playoffs. Dodgers still need solid relievers like him in the regular season.
Yeah, but eye test feels like Iglesias blew a lot of big games, including against the Dodgers. The Dodgers could do better.
Aaaah but he can’t blow a game against the Dodgers if he’s playing fooor the Dodgers!
Not with that attitude
Can we just make a blanket dodgers are interested in everyone article?
Oh they plan on it, albeit one repetitive article at a time.
How about also a cut and paste auto-comment that says “dodgers are interested in everyone news at 11” for each post that mentions the Dodgers, and then we can all move on? Instead of people thinking they are making a new joke/comment.
I mean there’s been about 50 new posts here in the last few days about free agents and Dodgers were mentioned in like 3-4 of them, but still these jests and japes should continue unabated.
@underdog Admit it. It’s what you come here for.
I think you underestimate the amount of viewers who watch the evening news at 5 or 6.
No, no, no! Last year was a lesson in what happens when you go all in on relievers in the offseason. Wait to see who’s actually pitching well at the deadline!
If you have the money that they do, you do both
You have to take a chance on somebody. It might as well be the biggest name available if you’re the Dodgers. Plus, their bullpen is as likely to be dominant next year as it was likely for them to completely tank this year just because of the simple fact that relievers are basically coin flips.
I mean, it still worked out in the end, didn’t it? Maybe Tanner needed a year to get adjusted to playing on a team with pressure.
Angels needs SP and a 3b, watch them sign Igelsias instead.
This has happened before, it can surely happen again. Especially if the Angels are involved.
Bachman, Burke, Farris, Johnson, Joyce, Lawyerson, Mederos, Silseth, Stephenson, Zeferjahn.
They still need a couple more arms. Iglesias wouldn’t be a bad pickup, and bringing back Jansen as well.
He made about $15m per year on his previous four-year contract.
I’ll say one-year $20m would be a good contract to hand out.
If he wants two years, give him a vesting option for 2027.based on appearances.
Every time I read about someone complaining about the rich I just assume they have no money.
The rich pay the moat taxes? 😂🤣😂🤣😂
1986 was the last year when the rich paid the most in taxes. Reagan “streamlined” the tax laws under the fake guise of “trickledown” economics.
Probably because the poor people actually pay taxes.
Now $500 is the minimum to owe taxes rather than 20k. I’m sure every kid trying to earn a little spending money and the working poor appreciates helping to pay for the tax cuts for the rich.
Depends how you define rich. The top 1% paid 40% of taxes. Top 5% paid 60% and top 10% of earners paid 70%
When the Dodgers played the Braves and they were losing in the top of the 9th with Iglesias coming in to close, my immediate thought was, “Oh good, they still have a chance.”
Don’t patchwork a WS team with more used bandaids.
All money deferred the next 30 years?
If they want to, they can. All teams can do it if they’d like to.
All teams do it all the time, it’s how they’re able to afford to get free agents to begin with. Dodgers just get crap for it now because of Ohtani’s contract deferring ~95% of his salary. Going from 70M a year down to 2M a year with the rest deferred is a crazy set of numbers.
This should be Plan Z for the Dodgers…
Save time and just say who they are not interested in.
Looked for an update on the status of Graterol but could not find much. Evidently he isn’t currently on the IL. The latest report on him was a setback to his rehab late last summer, then nothing. Is he in the Dodgers’ plans for next season or not?
No one is on the IL right now for any team. He is in the 40 man roster.
True. The IL isn’t activated again until the beginning of spring training.
The IL is only a thing when games are being played.
Actually, it is, because the 40-man roster is still a thing in the offseason, and players on the 60-day don’t count against the roster. Checking the transactions, Graterol was activated on Nov. 6 along with a bunch of other IL players. Which doesn’t mean some of them won’t be headed right back to the 60-day when the roster fills up. This distinction will become more significant next month with the Rule 5 draft.
@Blue
Fangraphs projects Brusdar to be on the opening day roster. And in another column says he’s “questionable”
Glad that’s settled.
fangraphs.com/roster-resource/injury-report/dodger…
Maybe they are referring to his beard.
I don’t think his sexual orientation is relevant.
You lost me.
I can live with that.
Strangely enough, so can I.