After the Tyler Glasnow deal went down last week, the biggest question left for the Los Angeles Dodgers is how aggressively they will pursue another high-quality arm to create a formidable rotation.
We could talk forever about the specifics of Glasnow’s contract extension and what it means to the team going forward. The trade with the Rays was contingent on Glasnow agreeing to a five-year- $136 million deal, ensuring he’ll likely be around if or when Shohei Ohtani joins the rotation.
What the addition of the 30-year-old Glasnow means right now is that he essentially becomes the club’s No. 1 starter, at least until Walker Buehler proves he’s able to handle a normal starting workload. Bobby Miller is definitely in the picture, but whether someone like Emmet Sheehan is a member of the 2024 Opening Day rotation depends on how hard the team pursues Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto or another top-quality arm.
It doesn’t even make sense to speculate very far into the 2024 season based on what happened to the club in recent years on the injury front. Last year during spring training, the rotation was stacked up with names like Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urias, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Noah Syndergaard. Kershaw, however, was the only one of the five to make it to the playoffs, as brittle and beaten as he was.
Gonsolin will be out for the entirety of the 2024 season, but there’s a chance that May could return sometime around the All-Star break, give or take. There hasn’t been confirmation of a potential return by Kershaw, although he has begun baseball activities and believes he could make a return to the mound sometime next summer should he not decide to retire. If the Dodgers sign Kershaw and both he and May progress as expected, it could be an instant boost for the team by the time the summer trade deadline rolls around.
The thing about Glasnow is that he still hasn’t pitched a complete season since he was converted from a swing man to a full-time starter back in 2018. Last year, his 21 starts and 120 innings pitched were the most of his eight-year big league career. The native of Newhall, California, missed nearly all of 2022 after having UCL surgery and missed another two months in 2023 with an oblique strain.
With Ryan Pepiot gone, it takes a big chunk of the reserve starting pitching depth away, especially if Sheehan makes the 2024 Opening Day rotation. There’s still some talent left on the farm in players like Gavin Stone, Landon Knack, Nick Frasso, Kyle Hurt and Michael Grove, if the team is indeed committed to using Hurt and Grove as starters instead of relievers.
Still, based on the overall health of the starting rotation over the past few seasons, too many arms are never enough. Right now, all eyes are seemingly on Yamamoto.