Los Angeles Dodgers: Imagining a Healthy Rotation
By Ryan Schultz
The Los Angeles Dodgers had a good rotation in 2016, but it was hampered by injuries. It’s fun to imagine how good they could be with a healthy rotation in 2017.
The Los Angeles Dodgers experienced a brutal season in terms of injuries during 2016. They lost position players and pitchers alike, but the record-breaking injury season was extremely painful to the pitching staff. At one point in late August they even had seven starting pitchers on the disabled list. That included the best pitcher in baseball, Clayton Kershaw.
Despite losing the most players to injury by any team ever, the Dodgers won their fourth straight NL West title. The immediate assumption is that if the Dodgers could remain healthy, they would be one of, if not the, best team(s) in baseball. While that is a heavy assumption, it is certainly interesting to inspect and discern just how good the Dodgers rotation can be if healthy. The 2017 rotation is not greatly changed from what the best version of the Dodgers rotation would have been in the previous season. Their Opening Day rotation will likely be Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda, Julio Urias and Scott Kazmir.
Clayton Kershaw’s injury being essentially unfixable is, of course, concerning, but it can be held in check (and likely will be) during the coming season. However, in this particular piece of analysis we are pretending that injuries will not exist for any of these pitchers. It’s unrealistic, but this is a dream scenario. Teams like the White Sox, Cubs and Cardinals were able to nearly achieve this task in 2016, so it’s not completely impossible.
An injury-free season for Clayton Kershaw always has the potential to be a historically great one. He’s the best pitcher currently in baseball, and he’s among the best to ever play the game. He hasn’t had a season with an ERA above 3.00 since his rookie season. Since 2013, he only has one season with an ERA over 2.00 (2.13 in 2015). This all coming during a short era of increased run production, especially in 2016.
During last season, Kershaw’s greatest and most impressive statistic category was his strikeout to walk ratio. He had an incredible 31.6 percent strikeout rate and 2.0 percent walk rate, yielding a 29.6 percent K-BB%. For context, Max Scherzer, the 2016 Cy Young winner, is known for striking batters out and only had a 25.3 percent K-BB%. Only 10 pitchers with 140 innings pitched even had more than 20 percent in the category. Kershaw was incredible at limiting walks while also striking batters out. It was his greatest strength, which led to a 0.72 WHIP on the season and his remarkable ERA.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Based on past performance throughout his career, and his play in 2016, Kershaw is set up to have a very good season in 2017 if he can remain healthy. It doesn’t seem likely that he will let other pitchers win too many more Cy Youngs before he adds another to his shelf.
After Kershaw things get admittedly pretty murky. Rich Hill was good in 2016 when he was able to stay on the field. When healthy, he has the ability to be a perfectly adequate second or third starter. This past season he posted a 2.12 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 29.4 percent K%, 21.9 percent K-BB% and 2.39 FIP. Those numbers are all very, very good. The caveat is that he only pitched 110.1 innings. If he could remain healthy, the stats would probably drop slightly but be made up for by the increased number of innings eaten. A healthy Rich Hill could be a very good number two behind Clayton Kershaw.
Kenta Maeda had a rookie season good enough to earn him a spot as a finalist next to Trea Turner and teammate Corey Seager in Rookie of the Year voting. Simply being in the company of Turner and Seager speaks to how good Maeda was. Unlike his rotation contemporaries, Maeda was able to survive the entire season without a trip to his disabled list. That meant that he was the Dodgers starter with the most innings pitched this past season (175.2 IP). Maeda’s 3.48 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 25.0 percent strikeout rate were plenty good enough to place him in the middle of the Dodgers rotation.
Toward the end of the season it appeared as though Maeda simply lost steam. His September and playoff starts were disappointing, and the easiest thing to blame was his unfamiliarity with such a long season. The assumption here is that Maeda will be better adjusted in his second major league season and likely have less pressure on him to be the one stalwart in the Dodgers rotation. If this turns out to be the case, Maeda is set up to have a good 2017 season.
The decisions made around top prospect Julio Urias were at times very confusing during the past season. He was brought up and beat up at the ripe age of 19. He was then moved around between the bullpen and rotation as the season came to a close. It was an attempt to limit the number of innings Urias pitched while keeping him available for the playoffs and continuing his development, but it appeared as though it might do him more harm than good. Regardless of the mess that Urias endured, he still appears to be in a good position to break out in 2017.
In just 77 major league innings pitched, Urias had a 3.39 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, and 25.0 percent strikeout rate. It was ugly at times, but the pieces of a good pitcher were there to see. As with most young pitchers, he struggled with command. His 9.2 percent walk rate was higher than the Dodgers would have liked, and it forced him to be pulled from games during the early innings. If he can limit the number of pitches used to get outs, he could be very successful. Urias is the biggest wild card on the staff because of the uncertainty about where his development will take him during the coming year. With that said, it’s not entirely crazy to believe that Urias will have a highly successful 2017 season.
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Rounding out the rotation according the Dodgers depth chart is Scott Kazmir, who the Dodgers signed last year to add more rotation depth. It was wise of them, considering they lost Brett Anderson and Brandon McCarthy, the penciled-in bottom of the rotation guys, for a good portion of the season. Kazmir filled the role he was signed to play quite well when he was healthy. He pitched 136.1 innings, which was third behind Kershaw and Maeda in the rotation. During those innings, he wasn’t amazing (4.56 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 22.7 percent K%) but he was certainly adequate as a fifth starter. If he and the rest of the rotation remains healthy, he can fit in that role quite nicely.
Other candidates to reach the rotation are Jose De Leon, Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-jin Ryu and Ross Stripling. De Leon projects to be a middle of the rotation pitcher with some good stuff, but he might be on his way out the door in a trade for a player like Brian Dozier or Ian Kinsler. McCarthy and Ryu have both been parts of the Dodgers rotation in recent seasons, but both have been hit by the injury bug and don’t project to be much better than Kazmir. Stripling was essentially an emergency starter last season when the injury angel of death came flying through, but they may want to try him out more in 2017. In the best case scenario, no injury world this article lives in, De Leon and McCarthy are the only two who reasonably reach the rotation.
The Dodgers went with the quantity over quality strategy last season in regards to their pitching staff. That strategy worked out well for them in an injury-riddled season. While they aren’t completely dependent on health in the coming season, their quality of pitching certainly seems better. Both Maeda and Urias appear as though they will be better in 2017 than they were in 2016. Kershaw will no doubt continue to dominate every hitter. Rich Hill as a healthy pitcher is actually quite good. The fifth starter is somewhat in the air, but the Dodgers do have quite a few good candidates for the position.
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Essentially, the Dodgers have moved from a quantity over quality model to a quantity and quality model. That’s bound to lead to increased success during the coming season. If they can somehow remain healthy, the Dodgers have a rotation that can compete with even the best in the league. That rotation, with the help of a good season from the offense and perhaps the addition of Brian Dozier, can make the Dodgers the best team in baseball.