Michael Kopech injury update makes it clear Dodgers fear repeating past mistakes

In 2024, Dodgers injury updates were coming too fast for anyone to keep track. There were a few notable position player injuries — Mookie Betts getting his hand broken and Freddie Freeman rolling his ankle — but almost all of the time spent on the injured list was by pitchers.

By the postseason, the Dodgers only had three real starters and two of them, Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, had spent significant amounts of time on the shelf. Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw were both unavailable due to injury.

And that wasn't all — four of the Dodgers' top pitching prospects/rookies underwent major surgeries during the 2024 season. Gavin Stone, River Ryan, Kyle Hurt, and Emmet Sheehan were all taken out by the end of the year.

All of these injuries might have something to do with the fact that the Dodgers are now overcompensating to make their pitching staff one of the deepest in baseball. With Roki Sasaki's signing now official, they have seven potential starters and an eighth on the way in Kershaw.

They've also committed to taking their time with Shohei Ohtani and won't put him back on the mound until May at the earliest. Per recent reports from Bob Nightengale, Kopech was dealing with forearm inflammation in October and may start the 2025 season on the IL.

Michael Kopech dealing with forearm inflammation, may start season on Dodgers' IL

Nightengale's reporting provided some context for the Dodgers' addition of Kirby Yates to the bullpen, though that deal is still pending a physical. His speculation that Kopech might start the season on the IL has yet to be corroborated by other insiders or confirmed by the Dodgers, but it wouldn't be surprising if his workload is lessened at the start of the 2025 season, especially with two brand new arms in the bullpen.

The Dodgers said last season that they would need to reevaluate their pitching development and coaching strategies to get to the heart of their forearm/shoulder tightness/inflammation epidemic, and hopefully they've actually done that instead of just stocking the rotation and bullpen with arms and hoping for the best.

Their caution with both Ohtani and Kopech (and presumably Kershaw, when he officially re-signs) make it pretty clear, though, that they're not willing to lose pitchers at the same clip as they did last year. Maybe they're just a little sick of being clowned on for it too, but any motivation is good motivation.