Breaking Down Dodgers' Starting Rotation: Who’s a lock and who’s fighting for a spot?

The Dodgers are spoiled for choice when it comes to starting pitchers. With Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki's additions in the offseason, on top of the rookies who got their feet wet in the majors last year, on top of the pitchers coming back from injury — they've got options.

Andrew Friedman said after Snell was signed that the Dodgers were "naive" thinking they had enough pitching last season and paid the price for it when the rotation was decimated by the late summer, so they course-corrected (maybe even overcorrected) in the offseason.

One of the biggest questions of the spring has been who will get the last spot in the rotation. Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Glasnow, and Sasaki are all locks, but the race for fifth involved Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, and Bobby Miller as a distant possibility.

Gonsolin seemed like an easy choice, given that he completed a rehab assignment at the end of last season while May was delayed with an esophageal injury, but Dave Roberts said this week on Dodgers Territory that Gonsolin had suffered a "hiccup" with his back while lifting weights in camp, and May would get the spot as the last starter.

Dustin May defaults into Dodgers' last rotation spot as Tony Gonsolin experiences a "hiccup" in spring training

1. Blake Snell
2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto
3. Tyler Glasnow
4. Roki Sasaki
5. Dustin May

The Dodgers plan to use a traditional five-man rotation until Shohei Ohtani is ready to return to the mound, but there are concerns with these five that could lead them to add another before then, especially because Ohtani's return is up in the air. Yamamoto, Glasnow, Sasaki, and May all have a recent history of injury — some much more extensive than others — and the Dodgers could bring Landon Knack back to the rotation as needed.

Gonsolin's "hiccup" doesn't have a timeline, but if Roberts is comfortable predicting May will get the rotation spot, then we can draw conclusions about Gonsolin's availability by Opening Day.

So May's first few starts will be crucial. If he underperforms, then the Dodgers could swap him out with Gonsolin when he's ready to come back; Knack and Miller could also be options. It's not reassuring that Gonsolin is just the latest on a growing list of already-injured Dodgers pitchers, but this will give May a chance to come out of the gate strong and prove that he can stay healthy and that he still has the stuff to make him an effective starter.