Dodgers: LA’s Top Reliever Target Should be David Robertson

The Dodgers sent a group to recruit Bryce Harper and with the winter meetings starting on Sunday the hot stove is going to start cooking.  One of the Dodgers’ main needs this off-season is a shutdown eighth-inning reliever.

The Dodgers sent a group to try and recruit Bryce Harper earlier this week and now their off-season plans will soon come to fruition with the winter meetings starting Sunday in Las Vegas.  One of the Dodgers’ main areas of need this winter is a dominant eighth-inning setup reliever to help keep a heavy load off of Kenley Jansen.

Kenley Jansen was once again asked to complete multi-inning saves and the results were once again abysmal.  It was the second straight World Series that Jansen struggled to complete a two-inning save opportunity and it’s time to end that experiment.  To help keep that from happening again the Dodgers need to go out and get a bonafide eight-inning ace to bolster their bullpen.

While the free agent market for relievers has not always been rewarding, this year’s reliever class features plenty of options for the Dodgers to patch up the bridge to Kenley Jansen.  While relievers like Pedro Baez, Dylan Floro, and Scott Alexander are good specialists, they would all be better options for the mid-innings of a game from the sixth to seventh innings.  Adding an elite reliever would make the Dodger bullpen much better.

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That is where David Robertson comes in.  One of the main reasons that Robertson should be the Dodgers’ top relief target is that he is as durable as they come.  Robertson has only been on the disabled once which came in 2014 and had nothing to do with his arm, it was a grade one groin strain that he quickly rebounded from and got back into action.

Since 2010, David Robertson has been as reliable as relievers come, pitching at least sixty innings every single season.  The Dodgers have had a checkered past with signing relievers who then get injured but Robertson is as close to a safe bet as it could possibly get.  Not to mention he is one of the most effective eighth-inning relievers in the game.

Over the last three seasons, David Robertson has allowed a .187 average to opposing batters.  Right-handed batters have hit just .195 against Robertson and lefties have done even worse hitting .177.  It wouldn’t matter who came in to hit in the eighth inning against him, he can do the job equally effective against either side.  That is something the Dodgers lacked in 2018, and a big reason why Jansen was pushed two innings.

While the free agent market can be a scary place to try and bolster a bullpen, the Dodgers would be getting a durable workhorse reliever who takes the mound whenever he is called upon in David Robertson.  Without an injury history like Adam Ottavino and Andrew Miller, Robertson should be the Dodgers’ top reliever target this off-season.