The 2025 Dodgers Are Proof That You Can Never Have Enough Pitching

Alongside the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers were one of the busiest teams in the league this past offseason. The club was wheeling and dealing from the get-go, inking Tommy Edman to a contract extension before bringing back Clayton Kershaw, Blake Treinen, and both Teoscar and Enrique Hernandez in free agency.

The list of newcomers is extensive as well. Michael Conforto, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and Hyeseong Kim highlight the list of new names that will contribute to this club in the upcoming season.

With the Dodgers, the past decade or so has been all about their embarrassment of riches at the big-league level. Their offense is continuously one of the best in the league in every category, and their pitching staff – led by Kershaw – has frequently been every bit as outstanding as the offense.

The 2025 season doesn’t figure to be much different. This squad won 98 games last year (giving them at least 90 wins in every non-2020 season since 2012) and looks to once again be the favorites in the NL West.

However, the margin between first- and second-place in the West is shrinking rapidly. The San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks both have the raw talent to surprise the Dodgers and overtake them in the standings with a hot run.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers – like the New York Yankees – have been bitten by the injury bug over, and over, and over again, and the regular season isn’t even upon us. This likely closes the gap even more between them and their rivals.

As we’ve touched on recently, the Dodgers are absolutely stacked in both the major and minor leagues. Is the sheer amount of depth they have going to be enough to carry the weight while their big players recover?

Breaking Down the Dodgers’ Injured Pitching Staff

Anyone who follows baseball knows how quickly fortunes can change, even when it comes to a team that’s supposed to be the best in the game. A few poorly-timed injuries (not that there is ever an injury that happens at the right time) can change a lot.

The Dodgers could very well find this out once the regular season kicks off. Heck, their regular season is going to start much sooner than everyone else’s, as they’re supposed to take on the Chicago Cubs later this week in the 2025 Tokyo Series.

Interestingly enough, the club has 11 players on the injured list and every single one of them are pitchers. Six starters and five relievers are currently on the shelf.

Starting Rotation

Starting Pitchers	Injury	Timetable
Tony Gonsolin	Back discomfort	TBD (will miss Opening Day)
Kyle Hurt	Tommy John (July 2024)	Out for the year
Clayton Kershaw	Toe/knee surgery	Targeting June return
River Ryan	Tommy John (August 2024)	Out for the year
Emmet Sheehan	Tommy John (May 2024)	Targeting post-All-Star break return
Gavin Stone	Shoulder surgery	Out for the year

Bullpen

relief Pitchers	Injury	Timetable
Brusdar Graterol	Shoulder surgery	Targeting second-half return
Michael Grove	Shoulder surgery	Out for the year
Edgardo Henriquez	Foot discomfort	Targeting May return
Michael Kopech	Forearm inflammation	Targeting April return
Evan Phillips	PRP injection	Targeting April return

Why the Cause for Concern Remains Very Low

For a brief period of time, pitchers like Dustin May, Bobby Miller, Landon Knack, and Nick Frasso felt like their presences in the organization were redundant. The Dodgers had so much pitching that it seemed a trade or two could be on the horizon.

Now, the club and their decision-makers look like geniuses. With a starting rotation as injury prone as theirs is, it has always made all the sense in the world to stock up on arms just in case one of them goes down. Of course, they couldn’t have known that a whole lot more than one would hit the shelf this early in the year, but it still seems that this team isn’t going to miss a beat.

Even without Kershaw and Gonsolin in the Opening Day rotation, the Dodgers are still preparing to start the year with a rotation that looks something like this:

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto

• Roki Sasaki

• Blake Snell

• Tyler Glasnow

• Dustin May

Yeah, that should do just fine. Don’t forget that Ohtani is likely going to begin pitching in big league games around May as well. That’ll give the Dodgers six high-end starters in their rotation all at the same time. It’s not everyday that a team has multiple ace-caliber arms on their staff, yet alone four or five of them.

I’ve spent so much time talking about the starting rotation, but the bullpen has been decimated too. Graterol, Kopech, and Phillips are three of the team’s top relievers and it’s not great to have them all out of action at the same time.

Yet, the front office made sure to add Treinen, Scott and Yates to the fold this past offseason just in case things like this pop up. Instead of being completely out of luck, the Dodgers are still sitting pretty.

If anything, all of these injuries are opening up the door for the club to audition more of their internal options, especially on the relief-pitching side of things. Once all five of these arms hit the shelf, the likes of Justin Wrobleski, Ben Casparius, Matt Sauer, and Jack Dreyer all moved up a spot or two on the depth chart.

Wrobleski and Casparius are both notable pitching prospects in the Dodgers’ system, and it seems like both of them are ticketed for spots on the club’s Opening Day roster. Each of them came up through the ranks as starters, but there are spots with their names on them in the bullpen.

Casparius, one of many strikeout machines in the Dodgers’ system, dazzled through his first 8.1 innings of big league time last year. He punched out 12 batters while walking just four and allowing two earned runs, good for a 2.16 ERA. He’s capable of starting games if needed, but his arsenal is going to play nicely out of the ‘pen as a multi-inning option.

Closing Thoughts

The Dodgers had a busier offseason than nearly every other team, but the moves that seemed like overkill at the time are proving to be ones that are going to help start their regular season off on a high note.

May, Casparius and and so many others immediately felt like trade pieces in the eyes of many around the industry once the club started adding. Now, they’re projecting to play pivotal roles on the club’s early-season roster.

Having as many players hit the shelf as this team has can be damning. The fact that the front office piled on so much this winter is going to ensure that they don’t get off to a rough start out of the gates in 2025. Seasons can’t be won in the first month or two, but they can surely be lost.

Thanks to some big-brain thinking from an always aggressive front office, the Dodgers won’t have to worry about that this year.