The Dodgers intend to begin the season with a five-man starting staff, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told reporters (links via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic and Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). While they still intend to eventually move to a six-man rotation, that’ll wait until May.
L.A. had previously indicated they’d run a six-man staff all year. That’d allow Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki to stay close to the schedule they had in Japan, where starters pitch once per week. It’s also designed to avoid overworking a rotation full of pitchers who have notable injury histories. However, the early-season schedule allows skipper Dave Roberts to keep everyone’s workload in check organically.
The Dodgers and Cubs open the regular season with a two-game set at the Tokyo Dome on March 18-19. Los Angeles is expected to turn to Yamamoto and Sasaki, respectively, to pitch in their home country. They then have a week before their domestic season opener, which’ll be on March 27 against Detroit. The schedule builds in an off day on Monday, March 30, followed by days off for each of the next five Thursdays. They have a few stretches of six consecutive game days but won’t play more than that until running 10 straight from May 2-11.
Sticking with a five-man rotation allows them to carry an eighth reliever. Teams are limited to 13 pitchers. As a two-way player, Shohei Ohtani doesn’t count against the limit. He’s still working back from 2023 elbow surgery and last year’s postseason shoulder injury. He’ll be limited to hitting for the first few weeks of the season. Going with a six-man rotation while Ohtani is not pitching would cap them at a seven-man bullpen.
Ohtani could be ready to make his return to the mound at some point in May. That’d align with when the Dodgers are looking to move back to a six-man rotation and would permit them to keep the eight-man bullpen all year. Friedman unsurprisingly said the Dodgers weren’t going to push Ohtani’s recovery just to meet a specific deadline. It’s better to operate with a seven-man bullpen for a while than risk pushing Ohtani’s arm too quickly. The return timetable might line up anyways with when the schedule becomes more demanding.
In the short term, the five-man staff seemingly introduces a camp battle between Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May for one rotation job. The front four will be filled by Yamamoto, Sasaki, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. That’d leave Gonsolin, May, Landon Knack, Bobby Miller, Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius as healthy rotation options.
May has more than five years of service, meaning the Dodgers cannot send him to the minors without his approval. The rest of the back-end starters do have options. Gonsolin would reach the five-year service mark after collecting another 20 days on the MLB roster. At that point, he’d be able to refuse a minor league assignment as well.
If everyone stays healthy during Spring Training, that could push one of May or Gonsolin to the bullpen. An Ohtani return coinciding with the move to a six-man rotation could keep it that way, though it’s likely they’ll have encountered some kind of injury trouble by that point. Roberts said the Dodgers view May and Gonsolin as starters but left open the possibility of kicking one into long relief once the season gets started.
Both pitchers missed the 2024 season to injury. Gonsolin underwent an ill-timed Tommy John surgery in August ’23. May underwent a flexor tendon repair the month before that. He was gearing up for a midseason return last summer before a surprising July announcement that he’d undergone season-ending surgery to repair a tear in his esophagus.
May discussed that scary incident with Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times. The 27-year-old righty said it occurred in a fluke manner while he was having a salad for dinner. A piece of lettuce lodged awkwardly in his throat and ended up piercing his esophagus when he tried to wash it down with a sip of water. May credited his wife Millie with encouraging him to go to the emergency room, where doctors realized the severity of the injury and rushed him into surgery. May told Harris he’s not sure that he would have survived the night had he not had the emergency operation. The column is worth a full read, as May discussed both his offseason trajectory and the perspective he gained from such a harrowing experience.