David Price Is “Ready for Whatever,” and So Are the Dodgers

Even before they signed free agent Trevor Bauer, the Dodgers appeared to have a stacked rotation, particularly with David Price returning from his opt-out season. Now, with Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, and Bauer in place, and with youngsters Julio Urías, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May attempting to reclaim starting spots as well after spending the postseason as swingmen, the unit is bursting at the seams. On Monday, Price made his Cactus League debut, and both he and manager Dave Roberts made clear that his role is up in the air, even if it means pitching out of the bullpen.

It may not come to that, though like every other team concerned about the jump in the schedule from 60 games to 162, the Dodgers will call upon their depth to avoid overtaxing any of their starters, particularly given their expectations for another run deep into October. That’s already been one of the signatures of the Andrew Friedman regime. Between very liberal usage of the Injured List and some fairly quick hooks, the Dodgers allowed just two pitchers to make 30 starts in a season during the 2016-19 campaigns, with only five throwing enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Under last year’s shortened schedule, no Dodger started more than 10 times (which prorates to 27 in a full season) or qualified for the ERA title, with Kershaw topping out at 58.1 innings.

Here’s how the team’s workload management stacks up relative to the rest of the majors:

Starting Pitcher Workloads 2016-2020
Team 2016-20 IP Qual 2016-20 GS Qual IP WAR
Cubs 19 18 3978.1 59.0
Nationals 15 15 4087.0 76.7
Cleveland 14 10 4161.1 83.2
Astros 13 12 3992.0 69.5
Cardinals 13 12 3906.0 52.5
White Sox 11 10 3868.1 33.0
Rockies 11 8 3886.2 47.6
Giants 10 11 3960.1 40.2
Diamondbacks 10 10 3906.0 53.2
Red Sox 10 10 3844.0 56.4
Royals 10 10 3792.2 31.6
Phillies 10 9 3856.1 53.0
Mets 9 11 3921.2 66.4
Braves 9 9 3819.0 38.0
Twins 9 9 3750.0 46.0
Reds 8 9 3712.1 37.0
Yankees 8 9 3761.2 58.1
Rangers 8 7 3781.0 37.9
Blue Jays 8 7 3669.2 40.2
Rays 7 8 3403.2 54.1
Brewers 6 8 3680.2 42.6
Tigers 6 6 3685.1 45.0
Padres 6 6 3684.1 33.2
Marlins 6 5 3703.0 31.1
Mariners 6 5 3745.2 38.1
Pirates 5 7 3744.1 41.1
Orioles 5 6 3621.2 28.3
Angels 5 6 3506.0 28.0
Dodgers 5 2 3812.0 71.0
Athletics 4 7 3767.0 39.9
IP Qual = one inning per team scheduled game. GS Qual = 30 starts in 2016-19 seasons or 11 starts in 2020

I’ve combined the separate 2016-19 and ’20 totals using the actual innings qualifiers, which vary according to schedule length and don’t need to prorate, and used an 11-start threshold for last year, which prorates to about 30 over a full season. As you can see, over the past half-decade, the Dodgers are tied for the majors’ second-lowest total in terms of innings qualifiers, and have the lowest total in terms of start “qualifiers.” They’re mostly among bad teams via both of those lower rankings, save for the A’s. If you sort the various columns, you can see that Dodgers’ starters rank 14th in total innings in that span, yet third in WAR. It’s a strategy that’s worked out well, to say the least.

The 35-year-old Price would appear to be no threat to reach any of those full-season workload thresholds. Traded from the Red Sox to the Dodgers in the Mookie Betts blockbuster — less because the Dodgers needed him than because Sox owner John Henry wanted to dump his salary somewhere, and Boston Harbor was off limits — he last pitched competitively in 2019, turning in a 4.28 ERA (89 ERA-) and 3.62 FIP (80 FIP-) in 107.1 innings, good for 2.4 WAR. He had fared even better than that through the first half of the season (3.24 ERA, 2.85 FIP), but a triangular fibrocartilage complex cyst in his left wrist cause him pain and affected his control, leading to a four-start, 10.59 ERA slump and a trip to the IL. He made just one start after August 4, and underwent surgery to remove the cyst before season’s end. Despite his late struggles, he still struck out a career-high 27.9% of hitters and posted his best K-BB% (21.0%) since 2015.

Price made a pair of starts last spring before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of camps in mid-March. While he returned to camp in early July, he soon decided to opt out, citing his and his family’s health concerns. He forfeited his prorated salary for the season, but not before donating $1,000 to each of the 221 Dodger farmhands not on the 40-man roster so as to supplement the meager $400 weekly stipends they were receiving from the team.

Price made his 2021 debut out of the bullpen, facing the White Sox on Monday at Camelback Ranch following three scoreless frames from Urías. Despite falling behind 2-0 to Tim Anderson, the first hitter he faced, he retired the side in order on 11 pitches. He got Anderson to hit a sharp grounder to third base, struck out Luis Robert chasing a pitch in the dirt, and induced José Abreu to pop to second base. His fastball ranged from 91-93 mph and touched 94 twice; for reference, he averaged 91.9 mph on his four-seamer in 2019 according to Statcast.

After the game, Price told reporters that he expects to be ready to start the regular season in the rotation, but that he’s flexible regarding his role. Via the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett:

“Right before we signed Trevor (Bauer), I reached out to (Dodgers president of baseball operations) Andrew (Friedman) and said, ‘If it happens, I’m willing to do whatever you guys need me to do,’” Price said. “It’s not a problem for me. Just keep me in the loop and let me know and I’ll be ready for whatever.”

Roberts is on the same page but intends to stretch him out as a starter. Via MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez:

“I can see him pitching in any role that we have for him and David, being the pro and the teammate that he is, also voiced that that whatever role that we see is best for the Dodgers in 2021 is what he wants to do. So that’s just a credit to him, but our job still is to build him up for whatever potentially could happen and continue to give us some options.”

Unlike the Angels, Mariners, and perhaps the Tigers, the Dodgers are sticking with a five-man rotation rather than expanding to six as a way of managing workloads. The competition would appear to boil down to a choice of Urías, Gonsolin, or May for the fifth spot out of the gate — with non-roster invitee Jimmy Nelson, who has made just three starts since 2017 due to shoulder and back injuries, also drawing mention from Roberts to bring the group total to eight — but health and other considerations will factor as well.

Looking back at the way Roberts has handled his starters over the past two seasons —— and particularly last October, during the team’s championship run — one can envision the Dodgers using at least one of the non-Kershaw/Bauer/Buehler slots in some kind of piggyback or opener/primary fashion, mixing and matching lefties Price and Urías with righties Gonsolin and May. In October, Kershaw and Buehler were the rotation’s only constants, while Urías started twice and made four multi-inning relief appearances, all of three innings or more save for his 2.1-inning save in the World Series clincher. May and Gonsolin combined for five opener-type starts of two innings or less, and each made relief appearances as well; most of those games turned out to be bullpen games, but Urías threw five innings of relief in one May start during the Division Series against the Padres. Whatever arrangements the Dodgers come up with likely wouldn’t be permanent, just ways of handling the staff for stretches at a time given their opponents and circumstances, including performance and health. Given what we’ve seen in the recent past, it’s not unthinkable that the Dodgers would even rein in Kershaw and Buehler once in awhile in an effort to keep their innings totals down; recall Buehler pitching four innings and Urías three in the Wild Card Series opener. The Dodger blueprint already exists.

Price, a former Cy Young winner and five-time All-Star, has some experience pitching out of the bullpen, much of it high profile experience at that, as nine of his 19 major league relief appearances have come in the postseason. The former number one pick by the Devil Rays out of Vanderbilt in 2007, he joined the big club in time for their stretch run the following year, making four relief appearances and one start during the second half of September and then five relief appearances in the ALCS and World Series. As a member of the Blue Jays during the 2015 Division Series, he threw three innings of relief in a must-win Game 4 on three days of rest, having thrown seven innings in his Game 1 start. In 2017 while with the Red Sox, when bouts of elbow soreness limited Price to 11 starts from May 29 through July 22, he returned to make five relief appearances in September and another two in October, stringing together 15.1 scoreless innings along the way. The next year, while helping the Red Sox beat the Dodgers in the World Series, he returned from his Game 2 start on one day of rest to get the first two outs in the ninth inning of a tied Game 3 before departing. The Red Sox lost that one in 18 innings, but two days later, Price started and won the Game 5 clincher.

Per our Depth Charts projections, the Dodgers’ rotation currently ranks second in the majors in projected WAR at 17.1, just 0.2 below the Padres, 0.1 ahead of the Mets, and 0.2 ahead of the Yankees — which is to say that for the dozens of estimates that have gone into distributing the innings (and, underlying them, the starts) within those rotations, minor injuries and even slight changes in our assumptions could reorder that quartet; the fifth-ranked Nationals are nearly two wins below that tier, at 15.1 WAR. For the Dodgers, our current estimates have Bauer supplying 191 innings, Kershaw 174, and Buehler 167. Behind them are Price (136), Urías (91), May (52), and Gonsolin (39), with that last trio projected for 17, 35, and 44 innings out of the bullpen, respectively. As the spring continues, and as news dictates, those estimates will be adjusted — including, likely, the addition of some bullpen innings to Price’s plate.

Whether it’s Price or other capable starters working out of the bullpen, such an arrangement could also bolster what’s been the closest thing to an Achilles heel as the perennial powerhouse has. The Dodgers’ bullpen ranks seventh in our Depth Charts, but Kenley Jansen’s hold on the closer’s job has become tenuous, and the team has only intermittently had reliable setup men in front of him in recent years, to the point that fifth starter Kenta Maeda was a welcome addition to the postseason relief corps before being traded to the Twins last winter. The multi-inning capabilities of the aforementioned starters could help to cover for some of that shakiness as well even before October rolls around.

And while the roster rule limiting teams to 13 pitchers has again been relaxed, having a couple of stretched-out relievers could gain the Dodgers an extra bench player. That’s just what the rest of the National League needs: a team already projected for 99 wins to have yet another weapon.





Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jay_jaffe... and BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.

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puddle
3 years ago

The Dodgers really do take the concept of roster flexibility and… ahem… stretch it to the extreme.

mikejuntmember
3 years ago
Reply to  puddle

I mean he should be flexible there’s a very realistic possibility he’s the 7th best starting pitcher on the team.