Dodgers Hope To Fix Alexis Díaz and Bolster Bullpen

The Dodgers have had some impressive successes in recent years when it comes to acquiring pitchers who have struggled or failed to distinguish themselves elsewhere and then helping them flourish. Tyler Anderson made his first All-Star team as a Dodger in 2022, at his fifth stop in seven seasons. Evan Phillips owned a 7.26 career ERA before being plucked off waivers in 2021, and has since become a dominant part-time closer. Last summer Michael Kopech went from getting knocked around with the White Sox to closing games for the Dodgers within three weeks of being traded. Anthony Banda, Ryan Brasier, Andrew Heaney… the list goes on. Beset by pitching injuries yet again, on Thursday, Los Angeles acquired Alexis Díaz from the Reds with an eye toward helping him recover the form that made him an All-Star just two years ago.

The 28-year-old Díaz, the younger brother of Mets closer Edwin Díaz by two and a half years, has regressed considerably since his standout rookie campaign with the Reds in 2022. He spent the month of May pitching for Cincinnati’s Triple-A Louisville affiliate after a left hamstring injury suffered in spring training compromised his mechanics and displaced him from closer duty. The deal — which went down the day before the Dodgers announced that Phillips will undergo Tommy John surgery next week — sent 2024 draft pick Mike Villani to the Reds.

The Reds drafted Díaz in the 12th round in 2015 out of Juan Jose Maunez High School in Naguabo, Puerto Rico. His climb to the majors was slowed by 2016 Tommy John surgery and the coronavirus pandemic; he didn’t even reach Double-A until 2021. He broke camp with the Reds the following spring and allowed just one run and seven hits in his first 17 1/3 innings — capped by his first career save — while striking out 21. By late August, he was the primary closer, albeit on a team bound for 100 losses. He finished the year with a 1.84 ERA, a 32.5% strikeout rate, and 10 saves in 63 2/3 innings, a performance that helped him place fifth in the NL Rookie of the Year voting.

Díaz earned All-Star honors and saved 37 games while posting a 3.07 ERA and 3.52 FIP in 2023, but his regression continued as he failed to tame a double-digit walk rate. Last year, his ERA ballooned to 3.99 and his FIP to 4.57 while his strikeout rate dipped to 22.7%, though he still converted 28 of 32 save chances.

During pitchers fielding practice in late February, Díaz slipped and tweaked his left hamstring. Subsequently, he struggled during his limited Cactus League action while trying to pitch before he was fully healthy. In late March, the Reds placed him on the injured list due to left hamstring inflammation, at which time manager Terry Francona said, “He has some moving parts [in his delivery], but his lead leg is not where it needs to be.” Allowing him to continue pitching created “multiple concerns,” Francona continued, adding, “That we’re sending him out there, and he’s either going to get hurt or he can’t pitch the way he needs to. It’s just not fair.”

After a rocky rehab stint at Louisville, Díaz joined the Reds on April 15, but he struggled with his control, walking five and hitting two while allowing four homers and eight runs in six innings. After he gave up three of those homers and five runs in a single inning of work on April 30 against the Cardinals, the Reds optioned him back to Louisville. He’s walked eight in 8 2/2 innings since being demoted, and overall has a 17.1% walk rate and 1.32 homers per nine in 13 2/3 innings of work at Triple-A, all of which suggests his control problems have not abated.

The Dodgers have not brought Díaz back to the majors yet. Instead, they sent him to Camelback Ranch, their Arizona spring complex, to work with their player performance coaching staff. “We feel like we have an opportunity to take a step back and focus on his delivery and getting his body moving properly again,” said general manager Brandon Gomes. “He’s still showing flashes of the elite reliever he was in the past with the ability to dominate right-handed hitters but hasn’t been able to consistently repeat that version.”

The Dodgers will not only have to get Díaz’s delivery in working order again, but they’ll also have to counter the multiyear trends that have compromised his performance. He’s a two-pitch pitcher, with a four-seamer that’s receded from an average of 95.7 mph down to 93 this year. Batters still didn’t do much with his heater last year (.196 AVG/.283 SLG), but his whiff rate on the pitch dropped from 30.6% to 23.7%. His slider hasn’t really lost any velocity, persisting right around 87.5 mph, but from 2022 to ’25, its horizontal movement decreased from an average of 5.8 inches (glove side) to 2.6 inches, while its induced vertical break increased from 0.9 inches to 5.8. With the changing shape and decreasing velocity differential relative to his fastball, batters hit .214 and slugged .384 against his slider last year, up from .153 AVG/.229 SLG, while his whiff rate eroded from 37.9% to 29.8%. Here’s a breakdown of his chase and swinging strike rates on his two pitches:

Our two pitch modeling systems are quite split on the quality of Díaz’s stuff, though both view it as diminished relative to when he first broke in:

PitchingBot uses the 20-80 scouting scale, with 50 being average and every 10 points representing one standard deviation. By that system’s reckoning, Díaz’s four-seamer and slider were both plus-plus caliber when he was a rookie, but the former has dropped 10 points over four seasons, and the latter by 20 points, with his overall command falling by 11 points. Stuff+, which uses a scale where 100 is average and every 10 points represents one standard deviations, views Díaz’s offerings in his rookie year as well above average but everything since as below average. Old friend Eno Sarris explains:

When Alexis Díaz first came up, his fastball had less arm-side movement and was more unique. The stuff model liked that version better. Could be as simple as finding what he once had in Los Angeles, more than developing something completely new. pic.twitter.com/0nVBgsHUNZ

— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) May 29, 2025

If the Dodgers can restore Díaz to working order, the move gives them a significant jump on patching a bullpen that’s been worked exceptionally hard thus far and been compromised by injuries. With starters Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki all sidelined by shoulder problems, and with Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, and Dustin May all returning from surgeries, Dodgers starters have averaged a major league-low 4.66 innings per start; they’re one of five teams averaging fewer than five innings per turn (the Marlins, White Sox, Brewers, and Rockies are the others). Their bullpen has thrown a major league-high 251 innings, but only 13 2/3 have come from Kopech, Phillips, and Blake Treinen, the trio of high-leverage righties who were so instrumental last year in helping the team to the NL’s best record and a World Series championship. All three are currently on the injured list, and they’ve got plenty of company:

The Dodgers just lost García, who’s second on the staff in relief innings (26) to the IL in a move retroactive to Thursday. García, Yates, whom they signed to a one-year, $13 million deal, and the currently healthy (knock on wood) Tanner Scott, whom they signed to a four-year, $72 million deal, all have ERAs of 4.34 or higher. Rookies Ben Casparius (a righty) and Jack Dreyer (a lefty) are just about the only ones holding the bullpen together. Even with Kopech and Yates on target to return at some point within the next week, it’s not hard to understand the Dodgers accelerating the pace of their summer shopping.

To get Díaz, the Dodgers gave up Villani, a 22-year-old righty whom they selected in the 13th round of last year’s draft out of Long Beach State and signed for a $147,500 bonus. Listed at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, Villani is a 35+ FV prospect who pitched in the Cape Cod League after his junior season but did not make his first professional appearance until May 22 of this one; he made two appearances for the Dodgers’ Arizona Complex League squad after missing the previous six weeks due to an unspecified injury. His fastball sat 94-97 in those outings and grades as a plus, but his command is iffy, with grades of 30 present and 40 future. More from Eric Longenhagen, who just added Villani to The Board:

Villani barely pitched during his freshman season at Santa Clara then transferred to Palomar College, followed by Long Beach State. He only worked 25 innings in relief as a junior but was heavily scouted on Cape Cod between the end of the college season and the Draft. There he sat 94-95 and touched 97 with very inconsistent strikes and secondary stuff. Though both his 80-82 mph curveball and 86-89 mph changeup flashed bat-missing movement, so variable was their quality that Villani worked with his fastball 81% of the time… Villani can’t really spin the baseball well and his breaking ball lives off his high slot and the natural depth it creates. He’s relatively under-developed as a prospect and might have better secondary stuff in the tank, but Villani is mostly a developmental righty relief prospect with a modest ceiling.

If that sounds a lot like the proverbial lottery ticket, it’s because the Reds viewed Díaz less as a recent All-Star who still has three years of club control remaining and more as a player whom they were likely to non-tender. It’s surprising they gave up on him so quickly, given that All-Star appearance and the famous name; it wasn’t so long ago he was said to be coveted by the Mets, both before and after big brother tore his patellar tendon in the World Baseball Classic (the two were teammates on Puerto Rico). He’s making only $4.5 million, but the Reds have been good enough at developing pitchers in recent years that they apparently prefer to pocket his $3 million-ish of remaining salary and hope to produce the next Díaz down the road.

Not all of the Dodgers’ reclamation projects have panned out — Noah Syndergaard, anyone? — but it’s not as though they gave up a lot to get Díaz. If they do fix him, he could be one of their high-leverage guys for awhile, but at the very least, the Dodgers hope he can simply give manager Dave Roberts another healthy option soon.