Dodgers: Limiting Julio Urias is the Right Thing to Do

The Dodgers appear to have a strict innings limit for Julio Urias in 2019.  Despite being the unpopular thing to do, the Dodgers are right to limit Urias.

David Vassegh created quite the uproar the other day when he said Julio Urias will be limited to about 100 innings in 2019.  Dave Roberts has played coy about Julio’s innings when asked to put a number on his limit.  Even if the one hundred inning limit is indeed true, it makes complete sense for the Dodgers to protect their still talented young lefty in 2019.

For starters, the surgery that Julio Urias underwent is not as common as Tommy John surgery.  In today’s game, Tommy John surgery has almost become a ritual for pitchers at some point in their career and the league has gotten down to a tee how to rehab pitchers after it.  The anterior capsule surgery that Urias had has only been performed on a small number of pitchers.

While current Dodger Scott Alexander was one of those pitchers, he is a reliever and has not had to shoulder an extended workload while pitching out of the bullpen.  In Julio Urias’ career, he has not pitched over 130 total innings in one season between the minors and majors so expecting him to pitch more than that after a rare surgery is not ideal.

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The Dodgers limiting Urias and keeping him fresh for the postseason is what every Dodger fan should want.  Last season just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the Dodgers and they still won the division.  This season the division is a near lock with only one team in the division, the Rockies, able to be considered a contending team.

Armed with a surplus of starting pitchers, the team could get by without Julio, and without damaging their chances of reaching the postseason.  This spring we’ve seen how filthy Urias’ pitches have looked, and if healthy he is easily one of the Dodgers’ four most talented pitchers.  Having him fresh and healthy in the playoff rotation could be the difference between a World Series title, and another second-place finish.

Last October even just in relief, the baseball world saw what Julio Urias could do as he got Christian Yelich to fly out in the biggest spot of game seven of the NLCS.  Sure he received an assist from Chris Taylor, but that’s baseball and sometimes you get the opposite end of the luck spectrum with a weakly hit ball falling in.

Rather than starting and shutting Urias down, the Dodgers should limit his innings by either keeping him in extended spring training or starting him out in the bullpen to begin the season.  How they choose to limit him remains to be seen but the Dodgers do not need Julio for the regular season, they need him in October, so restricting his innings makes all the sense in the world.