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3 young Dodgers who must step up in 2022 season

By Adam Weinrib |
ARLINGTON, TEXAS - OCTOBER 27: Tony Gonsolin #46 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after retiring the side against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning in Game Six of the 2020 MLB World Series at Globe Life Field on October 27, 2020 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
ARLINGTON, TEXAS - OCTOBER 27: Tony Gonsolin #46 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after retiring the side against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning in Game Six of the 2020 MLB World Series at Globe Life Field on October 27, 2020 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
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Tony Gonsolin #26 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Tony Gonsolin #26 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /

In 2020, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ long journey finally culminated in a World Series win. After years of being told that they’d assembled the game’s best, brightest and deepest roster, it was finally all true.

Nitpickers aside, there was no arguing that what Andrew Friedman had pulled off was anything short of spectacular.

The Dodgers were stacked with superstars, highlighted by the recent acquisition of Mookie Betts. Their powerful — and young — rotation was so fruitful that they barely missed an opted-out David Price and sent Julio Urías to the bullpen. The bench hit from both sides of the plate, and it hit often. There wasn’t any room for a consensus top-five prospect in baseball, and that was perfectly alright.

Now, just a year and a half later? The Dodgers’ bench mob has departed for Atlanta and Boston. Their superstars don’t seem quite as shiny without Corey Seager and with Cody Bellinger’s backslide baked in. Perhaps worst of all, the rotation is missing both front-line anchors and its all-important depth. Nothing is assured anymore, especially not after the San Francisco Giants just won 107 games.

The Dodgers need more help than we anticipated in 2022, and they need it from all corners of the roster. They need it from 2020 Rookie of the Year candidates turned forgotten men in 2021. They need it from fire-breathing bullpen arms who could replace Kenley Jansen once and for all, if they’d only stay healthy.

And, perhaps, they need it most of all from that tippy-top prospect who’ll finally have to prove himself, lest he be shipped out of town at the end of the season. In a year that’s proving to be far tougher to plan for than 2020 Andrew Friedman expected, these three young Dodgers will need to shoulder the load.

3 young Dodgers who must step up in 2022

3. Tony Gonsolin

Things were so much simpler when Tony Gonsolin was a 26-year-old plowing through the 2020 season en route to a fourth-place finish in the Rookie of the Year vote. Behind Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May, and Urías, he felt like a luxury item getting by on guts and guile, someone who’d always be swinging back and forth from the ‘pen to the rotation to help out wherever needed. He didn’t have a defined role moving forward, and that was just fine for the here and now.

But now? May’s rehabbing, away from the team as the lockout proceeds. Kershaw might be, could be, actually gone? Max Scherzer, acquired in his place, has since departed. David Price isn’t himself lately. And Gonsolin, scarred by a series of way-too-short 2020 playoff starts, is now “somewhere in between” the rotation and bullpen in a bad way rather than a good one.

In two 2020 NLCS outings, Gonsolin carried a 9.95 ERA against the Atlanta Braves before his teammates worked to dispatch ’em in seven. As the World Series turned, Gonsolin was given two more starts … which lasted just three innings in total. The Dodgers won the series in six; one of their two losses was Gonsolin’s Game 2 start, and they clinched the series in spite of the Cat Man’s 1.2 innings, spent allowing the only earned run of the game.

Unfortunately, that bad mojo floated into his 2021; the ERA and strikeout numbers stayed strong in 13 starts (3.23, 65 strikeouts in 55.2 innings), but his advanced metrics took a significant step back, due in large part to an overload of walks. His FIP of 4.54 isn’t up to par, and his 34 walks led to an unimpressive WHIP of 1.35.

If Gonsolin’s ceiling is a semi-effective swingman, then it is what it is. But the 2022 Dodgers rotation could really use 160 innings of high-2.00 ERA baseball from someone they thought would be a young stalwart back in 2020. This team’s ceiling is much higher if Gonsolin is bedeviling rather than bewildering.

Brusdar Graterol #48 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Brusdar Graterol #48 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

2. Brusdar Graterol

The Dodgers’ bullpen is unlike anything else we’re examining on this list because, even at its best, it could never be classified as a strength.

Still, LA pieced things together in 2020 behind Joe Kelly, Blake Treinen, Urías’ big move, Victor Gonzalez’s emergence and, of course, Kenley Jansen and Brusdar Graterol.

Entering 2022, Treinen will still be anchoring things, but 2021 lottery ticket Corey Knebel (otherwise known as Treinen Part II) has moved onto Philadelphia after bouncing back. Kelly finds himself without a contract, declined and loose in the atmosphere. Maybe Tommy Kahnle will be back, after signing a two-year deal with an empty first season? He’s certainly supposed to be. Most impactful, though, Jansen’s departure seems all but certain.

That leaves Treinen as the closer, and empties the eighth inning out for Graterol, who needs to stay healthy, miss bats, and harness his ridiculous 102 MPH fastball with movement to simply … be better than he was in 2021.

In the shortened 2020, Graterol burst onto the scene after the Boston Red Sox declined to acquire him in exchange for Mookie Betts. Their loss, as the man with the electric bowling ball breathed fire through the playoffs after posting a 3.09 regular season ERA. For some unknown reason, though, his electricity has never translated to whiffs; 13 in 23.1 innings became 27 in 33.1 innings in an injury-plagued 2021.

Graterol, of course, missed the start of the campaign with an elbow injury he was luckily able to shake off by the end of it. He was more “available” than excellent as the season wrapped, though, and his 4.59 small sample size ERA won’t cut it when more burden is placed on his shoulders in 2022.

Bottom line? Stuff this good shouldn’t come with so many caveats. Graterol has the big-game experience and fiery fastball necessary to take over a crucial role in this starting-from-scratch Dodgers bullpen. Now, he simply has to do it.

Gavin Lux #9 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Jonathan Moore/Getty Images)
Gavin Lux #9 of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Photo by Jonathan Moore/Getty Images) /

1. Gavin Lux

From 2018-2021, the infield was too over-stuffed for Gavin Lux.

In 2022? There’s plenty of room for the slugging second baseman, as long as he’s willing and able to participate.

It feels like we’ve written time and again about how the 24-year-old Lux is entering a make-or-break campaign this season, but the assertion is doubly true now that the Dodgers have actually let Corey Seager walk instead of just watching us spin our wheels about it. Unless the team comes out of the woodwork to sign Freddie Freeman, Lux will be their second baseman entering camp, with Trea Turner in the final year of his deal at short, an aging captain in Justin Turner at third, and an injury-rehabbing Max Muncy at first.

At the tail end of Sept., there seemed to be a good chance LA would be back-to-back champions entering 2022 with more infield options than they could shake Muncy’s boomstick at. Instead, the first baseman’s injury sent the offense into a tailspin, and Seager’s departure led to more uncertainty than ever.

Arguably, there’s now a future for Lux at three positions rather than zero, and his Dodgers blueprint doesn’t involve him being shoved into center field, either. All he has to do is hit … which sounds simpler than it really is, considering that just hasn’t happened yet. His legs and defense provided the 2021 Dodgers with 1.6 WAR; unfortunately, his bat didn’t do much of the talking yet again, accounting for a below-average 87 OPS+.

Thus far, the story of Lux’s Dodgers career can be encapsulated in the moment in 2021’s NLDS where he believed he’d tied up the Giants with a two-out, left-center home run, only for the wind to push the ball just short as he circled the bases with his arms outstretched. Now, he no longer has to force himself into the lineup. The spot is his. Will he celebrate, or get overwhelmed by the moment after years of external forces conspiring to block him? This is the year. A golden opportunity. Don’t waste it.

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