Dodgers: Ex-Dodger Josh Lindblom returning stateside to MLB?

Remember that Dodgers pitcher Josh Lindblom? He’s back, and vying to make an MLB roster in 2020. And teams are paying attention.

After winning a Korean Baseball Organization championship, MLB teams started paying more attention to the Dodgers’ 2008 second-round pick in Lindblom, reported MLB.com’s John Paul Morosi on Twitter.

"[Lindblom] is drawing Merrill Kelly comparisons and led qualifying KBO starters in IP, wins, SO, K/BB, K/9, WHIP this year."

After having only been a pitching prospect for the Tampa Bay Rays from 2010 to 2014, Merrill Kelly was a valuable starter for the Arizona Diamondbacks last year. He finished his age-30 season having been worth 2.0 WAR, with 183.1 innings pitched, 13 wins with a 4.42 ERA and 1.31 WHIP to go along with a 20.3% strikeout rate. The innings pitched really is what made Kelly so valuable, as well as his consistency, as 15 of his 32 starts went for quality starts (six-plus innings with three runs or less allowed).

Kelly ended up becoming a perfect comparison to Masahiro Tanaka. Both finished 2019 with 15 quality starts, Tanaka threw 1.2 innings less, had nine less strikeouts, and their WHIP and ERA were within one-tenth of each other.

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If Lindblom could provide regular-season value like Kelly (or like Tanaka), then he could provide value to even a contending team, making the Dodgers a reasonable landing spot (though certainly an unlikely one).

So if Lindblom isn’t likely to be a 2020 Dodger pitcher, why talk about him?

Well for starters, Lindblom certainly could be signed by Friedman as a flier who could end up providing surplus value like Kelly. But more importantly to many of you, Lindblom is a former Ned Colletti bust.

The Dodgers drafted Lindblom in the second round of the 2008 MLB draft out of Purdue University. Though he never ended up starting a game on the mound for LA, he pitched his way out of the minor leagues and into the bullpen during the 2012 season, an important one for the Dodgers.

In his 2012 stint with the Dodgers, Lindblom pitched in 48 games, including in an Opening Day win. In 47.2 innings, he struck out just less than a batter per inning while pitching to a 3.02 ERA. He was developing into a usable late-inning reliever for an LA team looking to make the playoffs.

Though the Dodgers ended up missing the playoffs in 2012, they of course went on to win seven-straight NL West titles, and counting, thanks in part to Lindblom’s 2012 first half.

How did Lindblom help LA win the NL West? in 2013? He was dealt to the Phillies at the deadline in 2012, bringing Shane Victorino, the flying Hawaiian, over to the Dodgers.

Victorino stole 15 bases in 53 games as the main leadoff man and gave Dodgers fans a reason to cheer in the years to come, because after Victorino, the Dodgers decided a swift-footed leadoff man, like Dee Gordon for example, needed to be a staple of the lineup. So, in a roundabout way, Lindblom’s departure may have led to the expanded role of Dee Gordon? Nice.

Hopefully, Lindblom can find his way onto an MLB roster at age 32, and hopefully, he sticks once he gets there.