Projecting Los Angeles Dodgers’ Opening Day roster for 2022

Alright, this is a weird thing to say out loud: the Los Angeles Dodgers actually … have some … work to do in putting their 2022 Opening Day roster together?

That can’t be right … but it is.

At the moment, the familiar 26-man roster is full of more holes than we’re used to, and there won’t be an opportunity to fix it further before … March? April? Things are looking bleaker than ever. So bleak, in fact, that Jeff Passan is dropping F-bombs and then exiting stage left.

The Dodgers weren’t quite as silent as, say, the Yankees before the lockout hit, but the early portion of their offseason was certainly defined by departures more than by additions. Gone are superstar shortstop Corey Seager and imported ace Max Scherzer. Joe Kelly found himself without a deal, and Kenley Jansen still seems to be seeking more on the open market than the Dodgers want to give to an aging reliever.

The rotation, perhaps most of all, feels woefully undermanned, especially in comparison to last year’s unit, which received an overload of preseason praise, but still had to ultimately add Scherzer to get through the Wild Card Game and NLDS. Baseball’s really hard.

Hell, even Clayton Kershaw isn’t on a roster at the moment — and, again, will not be secured for many months.

Most offseasons, projecting the Dodgers’ roster would be a formality. Write in the names of 20 familiar stars, take some swings and flesh out the bullpen, add in the top two free agents still on the market, and boom! You’ve got yourself a top-of-the-projections NL West juggernaut.

This year, though? There are many more gaps to fill, and only a few of them will be stuffed by high-profile names.

Projecting the 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers Opening Day roster.

Dodgers Starting Rotation (5)

• Walker Buehler
• Julio Urías
• Luis Castillo
• Clayton Kershaw
• Andrew Heaney

Go bold or go home, right?

After 2021, I just can’t allow myself to believe that Tony Gonsolin or David Price will, no questions asked, be penciled into the starting rotation to begin the season.

After decades of evidence, I also can’t allow myself to believe that Clayton Kershaw will begin the season in Dallas, New York, Boston, or anywhere else baseball is played other than Dodger Stadium.

Eventually, Dustin May will return — and when that happens, it’s hard to envision him being built up to handle 6+ innings immediately, especially considering he didn’t regularly do that before Tommy John surgery. He’ll be a valued member of this rotation by the end of the season, or he’ll be an important swing man, but he doesn’t make our Opening Day roster, nor does he give us enough confidence to stick a stopgap in the rotation like Gonsolin. That’s where Luis Castillo comes in.

The Dodgers will have every opportunity to match the Reds’ desires in a prospect package, and after Castillo never quite managed to dig out of his 2021 April and May hole to put up a full season to his typical standards, this trade may be 5-10% discounted. Who knows? Perhaps LA even expands things and adds some outfield or bullpen depth …

No spoilers.

Oh, and no Trevor Bauer. That goes far beyond even the most speculative projections.

Dodgers Bullpen (9)

• Tony Gonsolin
• David Price
• Blake Treinen
• Tommy Kahnle
• Victor González
• Daniel Hudson
• Alex Vesia
• Justin Bruihl
• Amir Garrett

Ohhhhh, yeah, plugged a surprise name in there!

For now, we’re projecting both Gonsolin and Price to be available out of the bullpen and retained when camp breaks. Trading Price’s $32 million will be more arduous than it’s worth, especially considering the Red Sox are paying a chunk (how kind of them). Plus, with a seemingly limitless payroll and several gap-filling trade options on the market in front of them, why would the Dodgers go overboard to clear Price’s salary when they could avoid the stress and just use him in case of an Andrew Heaney-related emergency.

As far as the rest of the ‘pen, we foresee Kelly and Jansen’s departures to be permanent; Jansen will be paid too much, and Kelly’s inconsistency and injury issues will be better suited to a rebuild. Wild Man Tommy Kahnle takes over his personality hole after rehabbing from TJS himself, and Blake Treinen slides into the closer’s role instead of an overpriced trade option like Craig Kimbrel or Michael Fulmer.

We’ve chosen to keep Alex Vesia and Justin Bruihl on the MLB roster from last year’s Quad-A talent pool, and we wish Phil Bickford the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Ah, yes, and Garrett. We added him to the Castillo package instead of options like Nick Senzel and Eugenio Suarez. We trust a Gavin Lux breakout more than we trust that the Dodgers bullpen will ever be 100% completed; though Garrett is coming off an awful year (6.04 ERA), he still struck out 61 men in 47.2 innings and is just two years removed from a 146 ERA+ in a full campaign. As a throw-in, he could definitely carve out a niche here.

Dodgers Outfield (4)

• Mookie Betts
• Cody Bellinger
• AJ Pollock
• Chris Taylor

Sorry, Matt Beaty. You’ll be up soon enough. We’re banking on Rios being available for Opening Day and being able to float between third base and left field.

This picture is fairly simplistic, especially after CT3 was retained (four years, $60 million) and Bellinger’s arbitration year was settled before the fight at $17 million, a $900,000 raise after his abysmal 2022 season.

There isn’t much to worry about here — other than Bellinger reaching his typical benchmarks after an injury-marred season that also saw him finish a win-and-a-half below what a theoretical replacement player would’ve put up during his starts.

And believe us, we saw a lot of replacement players in the 2021 Dodgers outfield.

Prospects, Quad-A talent, and veterans looking for a last shot — from Beaty to Zach McKinstry to a Yoshi Tsutsugo type — will all show up throughout the year when Pollock inevitably goes down or Taylor needs to shift to second base on a semi-permanent basis while Trea Turner moves back to short.

When Opening Day rolls around, though, we foresee the outfield being the only region that looks strikingly similar to the Dodgers roster we’ve always known.

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