Dodgers: Addressing How the New Pitchers Fit with the Dodgers

Monday’s MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone, and for the most of the day, Dodger fans were quite frustrated with the way the Dodger front office was handling the deadline. Little did Dodger fans know, Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi had a few moves up their sleeves that would change the landscape of the MLB.

As Sunit Bhakta pointed out in an article earlier this week, the Dodgers made the deadline eventful for Dodger fans, waiting until the very last 15 minutes to pull off any deal. Well, the patience of Dodger fans paid off as the front office was able to pull off one of the biggest trades in the last five years by grabbing one of the most touted starting pitchers available.

Now a few days after the deadline the rosters are being reconstructed to add these three new pieces to the major league club. I’ll go through each deal and grade the trade for the front office and examine how each player could contribute to this special Dodger team.

Tony Cingrani, LHP 

Tony Cingrani is your prototypical hard throwing left-hander that has immense upside. The former starter converted to reliever has struggled to live up to expectations out in Cincinnati and looks to benefit from a change of scenery.

Cingrani is only 28-years-old and brings a live arm that accumulates a lot of strikeouts. On the season, Cingrani has no record with a 5.40 ERA in 23 1/3 innings pitched. Cingrani owns a 9.26 K/9 ratio which translates to a 24.2 strikeout percent. Cingrani is averaging 94.6 mph on his fastballs, which he throws 88% of the time and works in a changeup and slider to put batters away.

However, like Watson, Cingrani is having a rough season getting left-handed hitters out, allowing a .293/.326/.829 slash rate. Naturally, the eye-popping numbers are the .829 slugging percentage against lefties, and that is because he’s allowed six home runs to the 43 left-handers he’s faced. He’s allowing a 70% fly ball rate to lefties, which tends to inflate the home run total.

Those numbers are obviously concerning but when you look at his six-year career sample size you can expect some positive regression. Despite the horrid numbers this season, Cingrani still post a solid left-handed slash rate of .218/.305/.407. The home run numbers are still concerning, but that has to do with his hard-throwing ability and the fact that half of his home runs allowed have come this season.

To get Cingrani, the Dodgers had to part ways with veteran Scott Van Slyke and catcher Heanndrik Clementina. Van Slyke has been the odd man out of the Dodgers major league club for about four seasons now, and he really deserves a team that could offer him more consistent playing time. Clementina is a catcher with decent upside that is having a great season at rookie ball. Considering the Dodgers have Grandal, Barnes and Will Smith on the rise, parting ways with Clementina was not a deal breaker.

Trade Grade B:, Cingrani brings a lot of upside with powerful stuff and at an affordable cost. Friedman has made his living reviving players like Cingrani. When you pair that with Rick Honeycutt the Dodgers could potentially have a gem in Cingrani if he adjusts his mechanics to hide the ball better. 

Yu Darvish, RHP 

Surprise surprise the Dodgers made a block buster move for the BIG fish. The Dodgers were able to pull off a last minute buzzer beater to make a deal to bring Darvish to LA shifting the power of balance in the MLB in the Dodgers favor.

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After weeks of speculation whether Darvish would be traded from Texas, the Rangers finally caved and traded him to the Dodgers for a trio of Dodger prospects. In the trade, the Dodgers sent number 4 prospect Willie Calhoun, A.J. Alexy (19), and Brendon Davis to Texas for the Japanese right-hander.

Darvish, who is in his contract season, was perhaps the most dominant pitcher on the market during this July deadline. Although Darvish sits at 6-9 with a 4.01 ERA on the year, not one team ever questions his stuff. In what appears to be a down year for Darvish’s career, he still owns a 9.72 K/9 with an .224 opponents batting average against.

Darvish has only had one season (2013) where he finished the season with an ERA below 3.0. But his strikeout numbers have been among the league’s best since he made his debut in 2012. Darvish is the type of pitcher that you can expect to throw six to seven shutout innings every time he steps on the mound. Yes, he does tend to give up the long ball from time to time, but he also can flat out dominate a game with high strikeout totals.

What makes this trade so special is that Darvish is asked to take over the number two spot in the rotation behind Kershaw. Darvish has always had a high loss total due in large part to the Rangers not being able to score off opponent’s aces. Slotting him behind Kershaw gives Darvish room for error.

Darvish also brings balance to a lefty dominant rotation. Before this trade, the Dodgers were looking at a 1-2-3 rotation of all lefties and having to decide between Kenta Maeda and Brandon McCarthy (assuming healthy) for their fourth starter. The acquisition of Darvish brings balance and also gives Kershaw the ability to rest in a seven game series and not have to pitch game one, four and possibly seven.

Darvish also brings flexibility to the bullpen. With Darvish solidified in the rotation Dave Roberts now can move either Hyun-Jin Ryu or Kenta Maeda to the bullpen. I’d expect Ryu to make the transition to the bullpen as it helps the problem we pointed out earlier about the Dodgers needing a southpaw in the bullpen.

Next: Dodgers Have a Starting Pitching Problem (Again)

Trade Grade A: Darvish may be a rental this season, which may be the worst part of the deal. But the Dodgers have something special brewing this season and for the front office to not take a chance on Darvish this season would be doing the Dodger fans injustice. Darvish has pitched in the postseason before and up until last season he’s been a reliable arm in the rotation. Giving up Willie Calhoun will hurt the Dodgers farm system a bit, but Calhoun’s path to the majors was blocked by Forsythe this season and Taylor next year. This trade makes the Dodgers overwhelmingly favorites in the NL but now also favorites to win the World Series.