Why the 2021 Dodgers could have the greatest rotation of all time

The Los Angeles Dodgers made the biggest move of the offseason, signing 2020 National League Cy Young Trevor Bauer to a three-year, $105 million contract. The 2020 champions were already the favorites to repeat in 2021 and the Bauer acquisition makes the team even scarier.

The Dodgers were already blessed with pitching prior to Bauer’s arrival. Clayton Kershaw is the greatest pitcher of this generation and posted his best era since 2016 in 2020. Walker Buehler is arguably the best postseason pitcher in baseball, David Price is returning (if he is not traded) and they have three really exciting young arms in Julio Urias, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin.

All that plus Bauer makes quite the starting rotation. The Dodgers undoubtedly have the best and deepest starting rotation in baseball, and quite frankly, they could challenge to become the greatest starting rotation of all time.

Who are the Los Angeles Dodgers competing against for the greatest rotation of all-time?

64 starting rotations in the live-ball era have posted an ERA under 3.00.

There are a lot of pitching metrics that go into deciding the greatest starting rotation of all time — the most basic of which is ERA. In the live-ball era (1920-present), there have been 64 teams to post a collective rotation era under 3.00. No bullpens allowed (although the Dodgers have a great bullpen, too).

The last team to do so was the 2015 St. Louis Cardinals, which posted a rotation ERA of 2.94. They join the 1989 Dodgers, 1988 Mets, 1988 Dodgers, 1981 Astros and 1981 Yankees as the only teams to do so in the last 40 years.

The greatest ERA by a starting rotation all-time is 2.45 by the 1967 Chicago White Sox — which was two seasons before MLB decided to raise the mound, as pitchers had too big of an advantage over hitters.

From a logistical standpoint, the 2021 Dodgers do not have some of the advantages that other great staffs had early in baseball’s history. However, they still have a fairly good chance of being the greatest starting rotation in league history.

Let’s break down the reasons why the 2021 Dodgers could be the best ever.

3. Trevor Bauer gives Dodgers a truly special three-headed monster

Every starting rotation starts with its ace, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have three pitchers in the starting rotation who would be aces on nearly every single team. Seriously. The only teams that wouldn’t have Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler or Trevor Bauer as its ace would be the New York Mets, New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

That means that the Dodgers’ third-best pitcher, whoever it ends up being, is going to be better than 26 of the 30 “aces” in the league. That alone is something to write home about.

Kershaw is not the same Cy Young-winning Kershaw, but if last season (and the MLB Playoffs) are any indication, he still has a lot in the tank. There is this misconception that Kershaw is an old horse who will soon regress heavily, but time is on his side. Kershaw is still only 33 years old and is coming off the smallest workload of his career.

Walker Buehler is a legitimate top-five Cy Young candidate and could win the award. A slow start in 2019 and a blister in 2020 kept him from reaching that potential, but we have all seen how good Buehler is when it matters most.

The Dodgers are 7-2 in Buehler’s last nine postseason starts. Buehler has thrown 49.1 innings with a 1.28 ERA and 68 strikeouts.

Finally, we have the reigning National League Cy Young, who absolutely dominated hitters last season to the tune of a 1.73 ERA, 276 ERA+ and 0.795 WHIP.

While it probably won’t happen because someone else in the NL will step up, the Dodgers have a rotation where it is legitimately possible for the team to finish first, second and third in Cy Young voting.

And it doesn’t stop there.

1. Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin don’t even crack the top five

Any MLB team is lucky to field five starters that can be consistent, let alone five starters who are all above-average. The Dodgers have five starters who could legitimately all be All-Stars in 2021. It does not end there.

Most teams would die for one extra starter that could at least provide innings in the case of an injury, like Ross Stripling did for the team over the past few seasons. The Dodgers don’t have just one of those options. They have two.

The depth in the Dodgers rotation is overflowing.

And they don’t just have two starters who could fill in if there is an injury. They have two starters who would be the third-best pitcher on most MLB staffs. The Dodgers could legitimately lose 40% of their starting rotation and replace it with great young arms.

Dustin May has one of the nastiest fastballs in the game and posted a 2.57 ERA last season. Tony Gonsolin is not as flashy as May but was even better than him last season. He posted a 2.31 ERA in 2020, has a career ERA under 3.00, and sports a career WHIP under 1.000.

What the Dodgers do with May and Gonsolin is anyone’s guess, but the team won’t miss a beat if someone gets hurt — and even if the team somehow lost 60% of its starting rotation, they still would have Josiah Gray, MLB Pipeline’s 58th-ranked prospect, to call up in case of emergency.

The Dodgers are seven talented starters deep with a top five that is full of All-Star potential with a top three full of Cy Young potential. The talent of this rotation truly is unprecedented.

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