The Dodgers Are the Perfect Team for J.P. Feyereisen

J.P. Feyereisen did not have to wait in DFA limbo for very long.

Just one day after being designated for assignment in order to make way for Zach Eflin on Tampa Bay’s 40-man roster, Feyereisen was traded to the Dodgers. The return is a 25-year-old left-hander named Jeff Belge, who is separated from Greg Holland by Zeeland and North Brabant. (While waiting for Eric Longenhagen’s précis on Belge, I amused myself by thinking of other former Dodgers players whose names are well-suited to puns about Belgium: Brussels Martin, Wallonia Moon, Charleroi Hough, and so on. Jim Ghentile made his major league debut with the Dodgers before being traded to Baltimore.)

Belge stands 6-foot-5, which fits the Rays’ affinity for tall pitchers. (Tampa Bay’s World Series-bound pitching staff in 2020 was taller, on average, than that year’s Houston Rockets.) Longenhagen also pointed out that Belge’s fastball, which sits 93 to 94 mph, has the natural cut/rise action that Tampa Bay tends to seek out. And over the past two seasons, he’s struck out 113 in 75 1/3 minor league innings.

Unfortunately, he’s so tall and his delivery is so upright that he has to throw said fastball downhill in order to get it in the zone, which he doesn’t do that often. In 2019, he walked 26.3% of the batters he faced in Low-A; in 2021, he walked 15 batters in just 7 2/3 Arizona Fall League innings. This season, he was a little better, but a 12.5% walk rate in High-A does not a prospect make. Add in his age relative to level (he’s yet to reach Double-A) and a checkered injury history, and it seems like Belge is about the quality of prospect you’d trade for a reliever who was days away from getting waived and isn’t going to pitch for nine months.

Back to Feyereisen, then. The 29-year-old is the second-best pitcher to come out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, after Jordan Zimmermann, and has now been traded four times in his career. Two of those — the Andrew Miller-to-Cleveland deal at the 2016 deadline and the Willy Adames trade in May of 2021 — were real blockbusters.

Since arriving in Tampa Bay, Feyereisen has pitched exceptionally well when healthy. In fact, he did not allow a single run in 2022 over 24 1/3 innings. That, as anyone who reads Ben Clemens regularly will already know, is a major league record for most innings pitched in a season without being scored upon. If given another full season, Feyereisen probably would not literally be this good, but he’d be a valuable bullpen piece for any team. With a slider that breaks almost horizontally toward the glove side and a changeup that does the same thing in the opposite direction, he kills righties (.203 career opponent wOBA) but can also get lefties out (.292 career opponent wOBA).

The reason such an effective reliever is available now for basically nothing, despite being under team control through 2026, is the shoulder injuries that limited him to 80 1/3 innings over the past two seasons and will keep him out until around August of 2023. With no 60-day IL available in the offseason, the Rays didn’t have a spare roster spot to stash him in, hence the DFA.

Which is where the Dodgers come in. Managing the 40-man roster is one of the most boring elements of baseball that has a major impact on team construction, but it’s the reason for this deal. L.A. has had a quiet offseason thus far. Between non-tenders and contract expirations, the Dodgers have let 12 free agents walk — not counting Clayton Kershaw, who was technically a free agent for a few days before he re-signed — and until Wednesday had only signed one external free agent to a major league deal. They lost three players in the Rule 5 draft while selecting none, and have steered clear of major trades.

This makes for a conspicuous contrast to the Dodgers’ normal way of doing business, but whether you like it or not, there is a reason: The Dodgers have been over the competitive balance tax threshold two years in a row and want to get back under this coming season so they aren’t charged a 50% tax rate. Getting back under the luxury tax would also allow the Dodgers to go completely berserk in the 2023-24 offseason — when some guy named Shohei Ohtani is going to be a free agent, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him but he’s supposed to be pretty good — without paying the repeater penalty.

Whether you like that reasoning or not, it’s easy to follow. If getting under a $233 million payroll in 2023 means another big spending spree next winter, so be it. Unfortunately, the Dodgers apparently don’t know exactly how much wiggle room they have. As of this moment, Trevor Bauer is appealing his two-year suspension under the MLB-MLBPA Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Child Abuse Policy. As things stand, most of Bauer’s three-year contract has been nullified, and the Dodgers don’t have to pay him. But it’s possible, if unlikely, that an arbitrator could overturn all or part of the suspension, leaving the Dodgers on the hook for additional tax charges.

It’s less clear whether the Dodgers thought that basically every team that’s a threat to them would be loading up this winter when they started the offseason. Of the top six free agents on our top 50 who have changed teams so far, five have landed in the NL, two with division rivals.

Nevertheless, while most other teams were either at or near the 40-man roster limit, Dodgers entered Wednesday morning with three open spots. One went to Noah Syndergaard, another to Feyereisen. Because Feyereisen is expected to be out until after the trade deadline, he’s basically only useful to a team with a high likelihood of being in the pennant race late in the year. Ideally, he’ll come back just in time to shore up the Dodgers’ bullpen as they hold off the Giants and Padres for the division title. Not to come over all Arsene Wenger, but it’ll be like trading for another high-leverage reliever. All it will cost is a minor league pitcher the Dodgers don’t need, and the use of a 40-man spot until the 60-day IL opens back up during spring training.

Surely Dodgers fans would’ve rather had Trea Turner back, but if that’s not an option, this is a shrewd move to make around the margins.