Rangers could provide Dodgers with late-season rotation boost they desperately need

Although the Dodgers rotation has seen a couple of returns from injury over the past few weeks — Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler — and the arrival of a fresh face in Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline, they've also continued to be beaten down by injury and poor performance.

River Ryan's season ended with a UCL strain and subsequent Tommy John surgery, which may also keep him out of most of 2025. Walker Buehler returned from his second IL stint this season and was trounced in his comeback start on Wednesday.

The trade deadline has passed, meaning the Dodgers wouldn't be able to engage in any active talks to acquire new roster pieces. However, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic floated an interesting idea for the Rangers, who are out of the playoff picture and could be looking to shed salary before the end of the season (subscription required).

Rosenthal wrote that the Rangers could consider placing some of their more expensive players on waivers in order to cut costs. He named pitchers Andrew Heaney, David Robertson, Kirby Yates, José Leclerc and, most interestingly for the Dodgers, starter Nathan Eovaldi, who has a wealth of postseason history behind him.

Dodgers could scoop up Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi if Texas takes drastic cost cutting measures

This is a big what-if situation. As Rosenthal notes, a salary-clearing roster dump wouldn't be a great look for the defending World Champion Rangers, but they could do it to get themselves under the luxury tax threshold. Rosenthal writes that the Rangers could waive Eovaldi now to save money on efforts to re-sign him in free agency (or his player option being exercised if he hits his innings mark), but it'd be hard to convince a pitcher you just dumped to return to your team no matter how much money you throw at him.

If they did it though, and the Dodgers were able to snatch him up, they'd be adding a pitcher with almost 80 innings of postseason experience and a 3.05 ERA to show for it. Eovaldi was a standout last season during the Rangers' playoff run, pitching 36 2/3 innings for a 2.95 ERA. He's been a little uneven in the regular season this year over 21 starts, but putting Eovaldi on the mound in the most high-leverage situations of the year would still be more reassuring than if it were a Dodgers rookie/fill in.

So we can keep our fingers crossed the Rangers choose to go this route. It could make all the difference for the Dodgers' postseason hopes.