Dodgers Wednesday Wrap Up: Mark Prior and Dylan Baker Added

In case you missed it, the Dodgers made a pair of under the radar moves on Tuesday.  They added pitcher Dylan Baker and bullpen coach Mark Prior.

The Dodgers didn’t make a splash on Tuesday but they did make two moves for the organization which for this year’s off-season is a flurry of activity.  They added Mark Prior as the new bullpen coach and they traded for right-handed pitcher Dylan Baker who was put on waivers by the Milwaukee Brewers.  The Dodgers do have open spots on their forty man roster so this could be a reclamation signing or it could be a placeholder until other players are added to the forty man roster.

Mark Prior was a member of the Padres organization for the past four years and served in various roles including his last role as a pitching coordinator for the minor leagues.  Prior did go to USC so this is a bit of a homecoming for the So Cal native.  He will be replacing Josh Bard who left to join the Yankees after spending two seasons as the bullpen coach for the Dodgers.  Although a bullpen coach role sounds small, it is possible that Prior could be waiting in the wings for Rick Honeycutt to retire.

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Honeycutt is sixty-three years old so at some point in the near future he will retire or join the Dodgers in a more limited front office role.  Prior is only thirty-seven years old so he could serve as the next Dodger pitching coach for a long time if things work out well and he gets promoted when Honeycutt retires.  Despite his injury-plagued career, Prior was known for his good pitching mechanics so that is something he could hopefully share with the Dodgers plethora of young pitchers.

Dylan Baker will turn twenty-six years old at the start of this coming season and was once considered a top prospect for the Indians.  He missed the 2015 and 2016 seasons due to Tommy John surgery, so this could be the next reliever reclamation project for Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi.  The Dodgers are looking for cheap pitchers with upside due to their eagerness to stay under the luxury tax, so signing an injury-plagued former top prospect is a good gamble that costs almost nothing.

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This past season, Baker made thirteen relief appearances for the Double-A Akron RubberDucks and posted a 2.84 ERA with ten strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings.  Baker is a hard thrower so he could follow in the footsteps of Brandon Morrow, who was an injury-plagued starting pitcher with great stuff that developed into a shutdown reliever in short bursts.  It’s safe to say that the Dodgers will add at least one more player to their major league roster before the off-season is over so this won’t be their last addition of the off-season.