Dodgers: Dave Roberts Acknowledges Lack of Balance in Lefty Heavy Rotation
After officially naming Clayton Kershaw as the opening day starter on Monday, manager Dave Roberts continued on to list the rest of the rotation in order.
Your 2020 #Dodgers starting five:@ClaytonKersh22 @buehlersdayoff @DAVIDprice24
Julio Urias@Awood45
— AlaNNa Rizzo (@alannarizzo) March 9, 2020
That rotation in full goes as follows:
- Clayton Kerhsaw, left-handed pitcher
- Walker Buehler, right-handed pitcher
- David Price, left-handed pitcher
- Julio Urias, left-handed pitcher
- Alex Wood… left. handed. pitcher.
That there’s a lot of LHP’s in the rotation.
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[adace-ad id=”120372″]Roberts spoke about the perceived concerns with a mostly left-leaning rotation and whether he thinks it’s actually a problem.
I don’t think so. I think that it doesn’t seem, from the outside looking in, as optimum as far as the balance. But every day is different. Each of these guys has a different mix.
These are our five best pitchers and I feel good about it.
As noted by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register (who already did the heavy lifting here), Los Angeles had four left-handers in their starting rotation at times during the 2018 and 2017 seasons (Kershaw, Rich Hill, Ryu and Wood) as well as 2016 (Kershaw, Wood, Urias, and Scott Kazmir).
A potential fix or alternative could be swapping righty Ross Stripling into the rotation in place of Urias or Wood. That scenario was explored here. However, it seems that Doc and the front office has confidence running out 4 lefties in a row.
NEXT: Kershaw, Buehler, and Doc Talk Opening Day Starter at Length
The best 5 starters should be in the rotation. I don’t care which hand they throw with.
Amen.
I’d rather see May or Gonsolin get starts over Stripling, since they are both future starters. But give all three occasional starts. But consigning May and Gonsolin to the minors after they both proved themselves last year seems wrong. Urias and Wood have both been iffy. Neither should have a lock in the starting rotation. Injuries are bound to occur as well. May, Gonsolin and even Stripling deserve occassional starts. Whoever pitches best should get more starts. May and Gonsolin are still pitch count restricted, but between them and Stripling the Dodgers have plenty of RHP options for the starting rotation. A move to the bullpen by either Urias or Wood would help with the righty heavy situation in the bullpen. The Dodgers have the guns, they just need to balance them between the rotation and the bullpen. Let actual performances decide it.
It’s the Dodgers way. Best player does not play. May and Gonsolin are easily better than Wood. Looks like KIKI and Taylor will block Lux too and Barnes Uggh!. We know they fizzle sooner or later. Lux deserves to be in there. Another year of whiff Pederson too. Whatever, with Mookie it all might not matter. Still Roberts will figure a way to bonehead up any real chance we get throughout playoffs.
Must agree here, especially about May and Gonsolin. Gonsolin actually DESERVES a rotation spot but we have no say so in this anyway ….
Concur, but Roberts still doesn’t realize that teams will load up with more RHP and it won’t be a problem unless we are being beaten by a lot of RHB facing our rotation. Roberts feels good about it because he isn’t the best at managing the pitching in the first place. Let’s see what happens and if need by they can adjust the rotation, because we know it won’t be exactly the same 5 later on as we go deep into the season.
The last time I looked Gonsolin had 3 wins and no losses with an ERA of 0.00 in spring training. What does he have to do to get a shot?
Be old and injury prone and from another team. Those Friedman’s favorites
Correct, Dr. Al Bendova. I was just saying that Gonsolin deserves one of those rotation spots but until Dodgers see issues with this current 4 lefty set up, that’s when adjustments may be made.
Looks good to me. I already saw this in the Press Telegram today. To Dodger106w’s comment, no problem! As long as he stays healthy, he’ll get his opportunities this season and maybe sooner than you think. There’s also May lurking. Assuming he returns to full health, you’ll see him on the mound down the road!
Quit complaining and let this play out it’s way to early to think like losers we have a great team lets play ball.
Steve, one thing we all know is that the rotation will be somewhat different later as we go into the season during the summer months. No team uses the exact same starting 5 all year long anyway.