by Cary Osborne
Going into the 2025 season, the Dodger bullpen was considered a position of strength. But the season played out, and the adage of bullpens being volatile became a true one for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers have thus gone out and signed one of baseball’s most consistent closers in Edwin Díaz to a three-year deal.
Díaz, 31, has four career sub-2.00 ERA seasons (2018, 2020, 2022 and 2025). He has four seasons of 30 or more saves (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022). He his a three-time Reliever of the Year Award winner (2018: American League, 2022 and 2025: National League).
Díaz converted on 28 of 31 save opportunities for the Mets in 2025. He converted on 21 of 22 save opportunities when he entered a game in the ninth inning. The one blown save was against the Dodgers.
The right-hander and three-time All-Star has 253 saves and a 2.82 ERA over a nine-year Major League career.
He had the fifth-highest strikeout rate (13.3 K/9) and sixth-lowest opponents’ batting average (.162) in the Majors among relievers in 2025. He has ranked in the 98th percentile or better in whiff% in each of his last three seasons.
With the addition of Díaz, the Dodgers now can be more flexible with Tanner Scott, who signed a four-year deal last offseason and assumed the role of Dodger closer in 2025. Scott converted on 23 of 33 save opportunities and had a 4.74 ERA in his first year with the Dodgers.
Scott could potentially be a left-handed set-up man for the right-handed Díaz, could alternate closing games with Díaz (keeping both fresher) or pitch in other leverage situations.
Manager Dave Roberts said on Monday at Baseball’s Winter Meetings that Scott was never right in 2025, and feels the 2026 season should be closer to 2024, when Scott was an All-Star with a 1.75 ERA.
“I still feel that last year was an outlying year for Tanner Scott,” Roberts said. “I feel that he is going to be much improved next year. There were some things physically that he was dealing with — some that were talked about, some that weren’t.”
Scott was not on the NL Championship Series and World Series rosters, after undergoing a procedure to remove an abscess.
The Dodgers will go into 2026 with one of baseball’s most talented bullpens. The expectation is that hard-throwing right-hander Brusdar Graterol, who missed all of 2025 after shoulder surgery, will return. Blake Treinen, one of the key pieces of the Dodgers’ decade-long success, struggled through a difficult 2025, and the hope is that the 37-year-old is close to the dominant right-hander he was in the past.
The Dodgers saw a breakout season from rookie left-hander Jack Dreyer, another strong year from lefty Alex Vesia and a great second-half from lefty Anthony Banda (1.52 post-All-Star break ERA).
More on the right-handed side, there is depth with pitchers Ben Casparius, Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein — who also have Minor League options.
Casparius, Justin Wrobleski and the returning Kyle Hurt are all in the bucket of pitchers with options and flexibility, having demonstrated recent impact in both relief and starting pitching roles.
The Dodgers can also afford to take their time on the return of veteran Brock Stewart, who had shoulder surgery in September.
The Dodgers add elite closer Edwin Díaz to a stacked bullpen was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.