Dodgers reveal Tanner Scott timeline, but they should quit while they’re ahead

In the NLCS, the Dodgers' starting pitching offered LA fans the incredible luxury of barely having to worry about the roster's greatest weakness: the bullpen.

Blake Snell threw eight shutout innings, Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game, and Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani both went six innings. The bullpen still gave fans some pause after Snell's and Glasnow's outings, but they held it together enough to help the Dodgers to a sweep vs the Brewers.

Relievers have become an afterthought in the Dodgers' postseason plan. Only four out of nine relievers on the NLCS roster pitched in the series at all — Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda, and Roki Sasaki — and three out of the four were almost perfect.

So even if Treinen is left off of the World Series roster (he probably should be but probably won't be), the Dodgers shouldn't bother with including Tanner Scott, who is working his way back from what he called an infection and what the Dodgers called a cyst.

Scott was removed from the NLDS roster and replaced by Justin Wrobleski, after the former underwent an emergency procedure. He's progressing back from that injury and could be healthy enough to be on the World Series roster with such a significant gap between NLCS Game 4 and World Series Game 1, but it's hard to see what the point of rushing him (and potentially incurring more bullpen disasters) would be.

Tanner Scott could be ready to pitch by the World Series, but Dodgers shouldn't give him a chance

We can't trust that Snell or Yamamoto will do exactly what they did in the NLCS, but if they can pitch just six or seven innings, the four NLCS relievers could get the Dodgers through late innings. Usage would be a concern, but we can't forget that LA also has Clayton Kershaw on the roster and seemingly no real plans for him. Emmet Sheehan and Jack Dreyer were also entrusted with a few innings in the Wild Card and NLDS (though Sheehan's didn't always go very well).

Ben Casparius and Justin Wrobleski are the two relievers lowest on the trust tree, and one of them would get the bump if Scott does come back.

Even if he is healthy enough and does show up on the World Series roster, though, the Dodgers should give him the silent treatment the same way they did with Kershaw, Sheehan, Dreyer, Casparius, and Wrobleski throughout the NLCS. The Dodgers can't afford a blowup, and Scott would leave them more exposed to one than anybody, especially after he's been inactive for this long.