Dodgers rookie pitcher wins nerdy baseball award for surprising April performance

It should surprise nobody that the Los Angeles Dodgers have been rolling to open the 2025 season. Currently sitting at 21-10, the Dodgers - the preseason betting favorite to win the World Series - are the best team in baseball. But it very well could surprise some people how we got here.

Hot starts for Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, and Teoscar Hernandez at the plate were as predictable as the sunrise each morning.

Ben Casparius emerging as one of the most reliable and lockdown arms in the Dodgers bullpen is, on the other hand, a bit unexpected.

Dodgers' Ben Casparius came out of nowhere in 2024

Casparius had just three career MLB appearances before the 2025 season. He never once appeared on the Dodgers' Top 30 prospects list on MLB.com. His minor league career ERA of 4.62 is nothing to write home about.

In 2023, Casparius was a 24-year-old right handed pitcher struggling to the tune of a 6.62 ERA in Double-A Tulsa.

In 2024, Casparius’ fastball velocity increased significantly. He was sitting at 94–96 mph and topping out at 99 mph. The uptick in velocity combined with improved armside run and carry when located up in the zone made his fastball more effective. Casparius started miss barrels while reducing hard contact and home runs (only six allowed across 103.1 professional innings in 2024).

By the end of the 2024 regular season, Casparius was making appearances in the big league bullpen for the Dodgers. He then found himself pitching the playoffs and becoming the second pitcher in history to make his first career start in the World Series.

The Ben Casparius ascension did not stop there. Not only did he make the Opening Day roster in 2025, but he has been one of the more dominant arms in the Dodger bullpen. He's even got the nerdy baseball awards to show for it.

Pitching metrics love Dodgers' Ben Casparius

Thomas Nestico, also known as TJ Stats (@tjstats on X), is a self-proclaimed baseball nerd with a social media presence and Patreon dedicted to baseball analytics and vizualistions .

His accounts focus on the data, specifically for pitchers, that don't get talked about in mainstream media. The real nerdy stuff that true baseball savants can't get enough of. Things like spin rate, pitch axis, horizontal/vertical approach angle, and tjStuff+ - a metric which calculates the Expected Run Value (xRV) of a pitch.

Nestico recently named Casparius as the "TJStats NL Rookie Pitcher of the Month" for April 2025.

Numbers like these very rarely lie. Casparius has the "stuff" and his impressive statistics appear sustainable. Clearly the Dodgers agree, because he's currently in consideration for a spot in the starting rotation.

From World Series starting pitcher, to nerdy baseball award-winner, to possible missing piece in LA's starting rotation. That's Ben Casparius in 2025.