3 midseason Dodgers pickups that make no sense at all

The Los Angeles Dodgers, at least under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, hardly make “mistakes.” For every lackluster signing/trade there are three good ones. At this point, you don’t even consider the disastrous signing of Trevor Bauer as something that affects the team whatsoever, right?

Life’s good as the best team in MLB with one of the best farm systems. The Dodgers didn’t stop there, though. They attempted to supplement their current best in the biz collection of players with other MLB veterans who might be able to contribute down the stretch.

But you can’t quite remember who those veterans are, can you? Well, here’s a hint: all are relief pitchers. You might know one off the top of your head. But at this point, they don’t matter. And they might not ever matter for the Dodgers.

This isn’t even a knock on the organization or the players they signed — it’s simply to point out how senseless these pickups were and how they were destined to never help the Dodgers outside of bolstering their minor-league pitching depth.

If we see one of these arms pitching in September without there being a major injury roster issue, we’ll fall off the back of our chair.

These 3 midseason signings by the Dodgers make no sense at all

3. Pedro Baez

A former Dodger! When the Houston Astros released Pedro Baez, we actually figured a reunion with the Dodgers could be in the works. Not too long after, it actually happened. But … what was the point?

Baez didn’t get the bump to Triple-A until a couple of weeks ago after spending most of his time with the team at the Arizona Complex League on a rehab assignment. He was there from July 5-22. He’s been at Triple-A ever since July 27.

And it hasn’t been going great. In 5.2 innings of work, Baez has allowed four earned runs on nine hits and a walk. He has just three strikeouts and has yet to strike out multiple batters in a single outing. What’s the use here?

OK, to sympathize with Baez, the right-hander has seen just 25 games of action since the start of 2020. The shortened season preceded injury troubles in 2021 and 2022, which forced the Astros to cut bait. But outside of being kind and giving Baez a familiar organization to reunite with, what role will he serve down stretch? He’s clearly not ready for MLB action, and even if he was, he’s seen such limited action over the last three years that it’d be hard to utilize him in meaningful situations at the big league level.

Maybe the Dodgers are playing the super long game, because that’s all we can assume at this point.

1. Heath Hembree

Perhaps the most puzzling of all … Heath Hembree has never been good. At least Baez and Robles have found a decent stretch of MLB success and/or have familiarity with the organization! Outside of Hembree’s 100-game stretch from 2016-2017, we can’t say there’s been much there.

Hembree is now with his sixth team since 2020 and was brought in by the Dodgers in late July. He started off at the Arizona Complex League before joining Baez and Robles at Triple-A but … again, bad results. You get what you pay for!

In five innings at Triple-A, Hembree has allowed five earned runs on six hits (two homers) and a walk. This comes after registering a 7.16 ERA, 8.20 FIP and 1.90 WHIP in 20 games with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Did we mention the Pirates designated him for assignment? Sorry about that.

Historically, he’s always walked far too many batters (3.7 per nine innings) and has only once had his FIP align with his ERA. Outside of that, he owns a career 4.33 ERA, 4.66 FIP and 1.38 WHIP in 351 games, which is really not adequate for a reliever. Though he has 387 strikeouts in 349 career innings, that’s not going to do much of anything. The worst Dodgers reliever at the moment has a 5.05 ERA, 4.53 FIP and 1.12 WHIP, and that’s Phil Bickford, who’s largely used when games are out of reach.

Sadly, Hembree, Robles and Baez don’t seem to be worthy of the “last man in the bullpen” label as of right now, making these signings as pointless as they come.

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