Dodgers: Brock Stewart Should be Utilized Out of the Bullpen

Due to injuries, the Dodgers are relying on Brock Stewart to anchor one of their five starting rotation slots. However, his best long-term value is out of the bullpen.

Brock Stewart has just 72 career MLB innings to his arm, and they have come split between starts and relief appearances. He was brought up as a starter by the Dodgers and fits the mold as one: 6’3, 210 pounds with three main pitches and fourth (the sinker) that he will mix in from time-to-time.

But he just has not been able to carve out a spot in the Dodgers rotation. He has had success in the minors with a 3.04 ERA and 325 strikeouts in 295.2 minor league innings. But the 26-year-old has had mixed success in the majors.

He has a 4.38 ERA in his 72 innings with the Dodgers, but that number is a tale of two stories. The role he was accustomed to is where he has struggled whereas the role Stewart was not used to is where he has had his most success.

In 41.2 innings as a starter, he has a 5.83 ERA across ten starts. However, in 30.1 innings out of the pen, he has 2.37 ERA. Hitters have a .858 OPS off him as a starter compared to .630 as a reliever. That discrepancy is remarkable and shows that the Dodgers should put Stewart in the bullpen long-term.

First off, there is a need. The Dodgers relieving corps has regressed tremendously from last year and is one of the main weaknesses of the squad. Outside of Kenley Jansen and maybe Josh Fields, there has been no one Dave Roberts can trust. Cingrani was looking like he could become a staple for the group but Roberts completely overworked him, leading to injury problems and in turn regression in performance.

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Stewart would serve as a much-needed upgrade. He can make a similar transition to Ross Stripling’s transformation from starter to reliever. Speaking of which, if Stripling continues to impress as a starter, he may return to being a starting pitcher, leaving an opening which Stewart can fill.

Giving him a legitimate chance at carving out a role as a reliever that can go multiple innings if needed to is better value than having him pitch most of his games as a starter in triple-A while sporadically making ineffective starts for the Dodgers.

He looks like your standard AAAA starting pitcher. A guy who is consistently excellent at triple-A but cannot, for some reason, come close to replicating that success in the show.

And the days he starts are days that are going to be terrible for the bullpen because he averages just over four innings per start. If you cannot average at least five innings per start, you should not be a major league starter. It does not cut it. And they are not quality ones at that.

He gets considerably worse the longer he stays in the game as a starter showing that he is at his best when he is exposed in limited doses. And last year showed that his fastball and slider velocity play up even more when his he does not have a big workload.

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So there is need, opportunity, and the numbers do not lie. Brock Stewart is better as a reliever than he is as a starter. Sometimes your calling card is not your calling card. You need to adapt to survive in this league. In the near future, Stewart will be starting because they need arms. But once Clayton Kershaw and others start to return, the Dodgers and Stewart need to embrace this change for the long-term.