The Dodgers are in agreement with left-hander Logan Allen on a minor league contract, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. Allen, 28, spent last season in Korea and is fresh off representing Canada in the World Baseball Classic.
A namesake of a current Guardians starter (who also pitched in the WBC as a member of Team Panama), this Logan Allen is a former Cleveland pitcher. Allen also suited up with the Padres, Orioles and Diamondbacks in an MLB career which has spanned parts of five seasons. His most recent big league experience came with Arizona two years ago. Allen allowed a 5.46 earned run average over 28 innings.
He signed with the KBO’s NC Dinos last winter. Allen took the ball 32 times and logged 173 innings but didn’t have great rate production. He allowed a 4.53 ERA in the pitcher-friendly league. That ranked 28th among the 38 KBO pitchers who reached 100 innings. Allen was 25th among the group with a 19.4% strikeout rate.
KBO teams are limited to four foreign-born pitchers, one of whom must be from Australia or elsewhere in Asia. Given that restriction, it’s not surprising the Dinos went in a different direction after Allen’s middling season. They re-signed Matt Davidson, former Cubs minor leaguer Riley Thompson and added Curtis Taylor (who spent last year in Triple-A with the Cardinals) as Allen’s replacement. Japanese-born Natsuki Toda is their Asian-born international player.
Davidi writes that Allen was set to sign with a Mexican League team for 2026. He got the WBC nod and pitched twice for Team Canada, working 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball. He impressed Dodgers evaluators enough to instead land a new affiliated ball opportunity. He’ll begin the season as rotation or long relief depth for Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Good for him he can stay in the states now and hopefully get on track. I doubt he will be anything special but hey he can pitch and give you a few innings if you need to rest your good arms.
When was he on track?
He definitely was good in the minors a while ago but lately it’s been rough for him. I just mean hopefully he can figure something out this year to make himself better he is only 28 still so maybe the Dodgers pitching coaches can help him out.
Yeah. Gotta root for guys at the crossroads of their career
Bone thugs and hard agree
I’m not seeing anything promising from him beyond low-A ball. After that he’s been hit hard and often. Good luck to him, but if he ever suits up for the Dodgers, something will have gone terribly wrong.
2018. Ranked on top 100 and in 5 starts (-5.6 on age) in at El Paso, he started 5 games after his promotion from dominating AA and pitched to a 1.63 ERA in league where 5.00 is good.
I saw him in ST 2019 – the year SD had about 8 top young prospect arms just waiting – and he all of a sudden couldn’t get an out.
Things spiraled down the toilet from there.
One of the biggest head scratchers that I can remember- total dominance to nothing. Not even a few average mlb years to show for it.
Maybe now it happens.
As I said, his last good showing was in low-A ball, many years ago now. For a similar head-scratcher, see Bobby Miller. Unlike Allen, Miller even managed to post a solid season in the majors, but since then, the wheels have come off.
Actually, as I said, it was in AAA not A. He dominated AA that year as well. At least Bobby had a little success.
His only success in Triple-A was over those five starts in 2018. Basically, a blip. Otherwise, his numbers at that level have been poor. It isn’t clear how he has survived this long even in the minors. For another example of a promising arm that no team could fix: Zach Lee. First-round draft pick, bounced around for years, and ended his career in the minors at age 30. This game can be brutal.
Blue – I think we are sayjng 2 different things. brew asked when was the last time he was on track – that was my reply – 2018 in AA and AAA dominating. You aren’t wrong that he has since spent time in AAA and not been good but his last on track period was in 2018 when he dominated AA and AAA and was a top 100 prospect.
More like saying the same thing in two different ways.
Depth signing bever hurts
I like this signing
RUINING BASEBALL !!!
I’m not sure the term “namesake” is the proper utilization here…
Good catch. Though technically a namesake can be any two persons, places or things with the same name, the more conventional usage ia one being named for the other.