Tyler Glasnow injury setback pressures Dodgers to reevaluate practices in offseason

At a certain point, when a team has had as much bad luck in a given area as the Los Angeles Dodgers have with their starting rotation this season, you have to wonder whether luck is really all that's to blame.

As far as MLB insider Ken Rosenthal is concerned, it's not. In a recent column for The Athletic, Rosenthal wrote a damning assessment of the Dodgers organization and its pitching development practices, which he believes are at least partly to blame for the club's injury woes.

The Dodgers have placed 12 different starting pitchers on the injured list this season, with 17 different pitchers making at least one start for the club in 2024. Tyler Glasnow, Los Angeles' splashy offseason acquisition tasked with anchoring an already battered rotation, is the latest arm to land on the IL with a sprained right elbow, and it's likely he won't pitch again this season.

Glasnow's injury is a devastating blow for the Dodgers and their World Series aspirations. But quite frankly, we shouldn't be surprised that it happened.

Tyler Glasnow injury setback pressures Dodgers to reevaluate practices in offseason

Glasnow's situation is just one example of a larger problem within an organization that can't seem to keep its pitchers healthy. Rosenthal took the Dodgers to task, saying that Glasnow was a high-risk, high-reward acquisition due to his past injury history, and given the Dodgers' track record, perhaps it wasn't the wisest decision to take on a 31-year-old, injury-prone starter who has "never been a picture of durability."

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said recently that the club would spend time investigating and "reimagining" its pitching development and protocols this upcoming winter. That sounds like a great place to start, as Rosenthal cited a recent report from Baseball America that found that the hardest throwing staff in baseball was the Dodgers' Double-A affiliate in Tulsa. He went on to point out that four of that team's six starting pitchers have since undergone major arm surgeries.

Yes, pitching injuries are an industry-wide problem. But when they seem to plague one team more than others, it might be time for that team to take a look in the mirror and accept some responsibility instead of chalking it up to bad luck.

"When a team that can’t keep pitchers healthy takes on more risk," Rosenthal said, "it shouldn’t be surprised when the whole thing starts to backfire."

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