Since winning the World Series, several Dodgers players and personnel have made various appearances in and around Los Angeles, like on the field before Rams, Chargers, USC, and UCLA football games, or Lakers games, Christmas parades, and even fast food restaurants.
Mike DiGiovanna at the Los Angeles Times has a nice summary of most of these appearances plus a few interviews. He also spoke with pitcher Landon Knack, who has seized the moment to be at several of these events. From DiGiovanna:
“There are so many guys who have played this game for 10-plus years and never get close to experiencing this. I’m a rookie, this was my first year in the league, but you never know if I’ll get to experience this again in my career, so I absolutely wanted to take advantage of it, to make some memories and just enjoy things.”
The rise of pitching injuries has been on the rise in baseball for the last decade or so, with pitchers throwing harder than ever and with more movement, putting further stress on their arms as competition demands it.
Back in April, MLB and the players union traded barbs about abrupt changes to the pitch clock, which sparked discussion in and around the sport. MLB at the time mentioned a study of pitching injuries at the time. This week, at the winter meetings in Dallas, the results of that study were shared with major league managers.
From Alden González at ESPN:
The sport’s 30 managers gathered in a conference room on Wednesday morning as MLB officials guided them through key findings from a yearlong study of pitcher injuries that involved input from more than 200 experts in a variety of roles. One of the slides showed that surgeries to repair damaged ulnar collateral ligaments at the minor league level had basically doubled over the past 10 years. Not only are current major league pitchers breaking down, so is the foundation behind them.
Said one manager in attendance: “It was stunning.”
Earlier this week, Dan Szymborski at FanGraphs unveiled his ZiPS projections for the Dodgers in 2025. Unsurprisingly, the team is quite good and deep as currently constructed. Of particular note, ZiPS is high on LA relievers. From Szymborski:
The bullpen projects as one of the best in baseball. Projecting Michael Kopech as only a reliever drops his projected ERA to 3.39, making him one of eight relievers on the depth chart (including the recently re-signed Blake Treinen) projected for an ERA under 3.50 in such a role. ZiPS is still a bit skeptical of Anthony Banda (though it nevertheless has him with an ERA below 4.00 as a reliever) and it’s unsure just how much Giovanny Gallegos has left. Luckily, the Dodgers have one of the best track records around of squeezing solid bullpen outings of almost anyone; I think a block of cheddar cheese might be above replacement level out of the Dodgers ‘pen.