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3 potential secret weapons Dodgers can’t afford to leave off playoff roster
The Dodgers need as much high-upside pitching as they can get.
While we may have felt relatively confident in our ability to prepare for October early in Los Angeles this year, variables shift significantly over the course of a regular season.
Think about it this way. If you were asked to prepare a Dodgers postseason roster back in June, would Ryan Brasier be on it? No chance, right? Now, if Brasier isn't handling crucial eighth innings in the NLDS, you'd be bummed and questioning the decision-making.
Brasier could be 2023's Tommy Kahnle (for better or worse), and is just one piece of a 12-pronged Dodgers puzzle meant to piece together innings and patch over rotation holes this fall. The offense might be mashing one through nine, but the pitching staff will be nearly improvised in October, meaning the Dodgers have room for as many high-upside pieces as they can possibly find.
The Dodgers' playoff starting lineup and bench unit don't have much baked-in wiggle room. The pitching staff? LA could go a number of different ways. They could lean on experience and bring Alex Vesia along (we'd argue they shouldn't). They could roll with only one traditional starter (we'd argue they shouldn't, but we might be overruled here). They could add someone to the playoff roster who's currently in the minors (we're pro).
Whatever the Dodgers choose, their 2023 postseason run will feature all hands on deck. We're just aiming to make sure they don't leave any effective hands behind.
3 secret weapons Dodgers must make sure are on 2023 Playoff Roster
Shelby Miller, RHP
Miller is probably a postseason roster lock after returning from injury on Aug. 31 with his best fastball already locked and loaded. This section was mainly intended to reiterate just how impressive he's been, and how far up the ladder he might deserve to move based on his recent body of work.
After looking like a disaster in his early spring training work, Miller has proven the Dodgers' analytics team correct by harnessing his spin this season and keeping his command on point. On the season, he has a sparkling (and out of character) 0.93 WHIP in 40 innings of work, maintaining a 1.80 ERA and striking out approximately a batter per inning (41, to be exact).
Since returning from injury, Miller has yet to allow an earned run across 10 outings.
Is the shift in gears permanent? Can the Dodgers count on Miller going forward to 2024? Literally impossible to say. He's always been a tough-to-harness free spirit. But right here and now, Miller might be the most untouchable option in the Dodgers' bullpen, and heading into October, he deserves a routine crack at high-leverage innings. Just don't overuse him (and have someone steadier in reserve).
Emmet Sheehan, RHP
In the battle of top prospect innings-eaters, it should be "Michael Grove: OUT, Emmet Sheehan: IN" for the Dodgers in October 2023.
Sheehan's surface numbers remain middling because of his early scuffles and his Sept. 8 implosion against the Washington Nationals (5.13 ERA in 12 outings/10 starts, 54 Ks in 54.1 innings pitched), but he's done his best work in recent days. Sept. 21 against the San Francisco Giants represented the peak of Sheehan's stuff; he struck out a career-high nine men across just 18 batters faced, recording 16 swings and misses (as well as two foul tips), equating to an impressive 18 "whiffs" in the record books.
The Dodgers have plenty of innings-eating options this fall, from the Ryans (Yarbrough and Pepiot) to Lance Lynn, a "fixed" trade deadline acquisition turned high-strikeout enigma once again. To ignore Sheehan's recent trends in a search for stability would be shortsighted, though. Lynn has relief experience, sure, but much of it has been quite poor, and he failed after being asked to play fireman in the 2018 postseason for the Yankees. His third of an inning with three earned runs allowed helped sink those Bombers in a 16-1 Game 3 defeat to their arch rival Boston Red Sox.
This is not to say that one inning five years ago should scare the Dodgers off from relying on Lynn. It's just to say nothing is assured, the arrow is trending upwards on Sheehan, and Lynn is a known (average) quantity whose profile becomes more muddled when he isn't a starter.
Kyle Hurt, RHP
Kyle Hurt, called up when Walker Buehler was shut down for the season, threw two perfect innings for the Dodgers (with three strikeouts) in one appearance before being sent back down to Oklahoma City.
It felt like, when Hurt was promoted, that he was being brought to the bigs to audition for a postseason roster spot. The flamethrowing righty would theoretically have passed any such audition with flying colors based on the data provided. Then, he went back down.
Did the Dodgers see "enough" from Hurt in an entirely different way? Were they dissuaded from using him? Or is their postseason picture just so jumbled with kids and vets already that they figured it might be best to wait until next season to see what they really had here?
When Hurt was brought up for a look see, Jeff Passan made sure to note that he held the highest strikeout rate in the minors at the time, whiffing 145 men in 88.1 innings powered by his mature secondary pitches and (Passan's words) "monster fastball." It would seem like Hurt might be a worth a longer conversation for a Dodgers team that's desperately turning over every stone right about now (no, not every Stone) in hopes of creating a postseason roster that can match the NL's other high-powered offenses toe-to-toe without a defined "ace" (or defined No. 2, or defined No. 3...).
Maybe the Dodgers know everything they need to know about Hurt already and don't want the rest of baseball to get too deep a look at him before October begins. But if they're as desperate for arms as they seem to be, Hurt should get a serious look next week.
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