Adding Wood to the bullpen will make it a lot stronger: Maeda, Buehler, Cingrani, Watson, Wood, Morrow, Jansen That leaves a rotation of: Kershaw, Hill, Yu. And Ryu should be used as the 4th starter as needed so as to not mess with the relievers roles much in the playoffs and as an emergency reliever if all others are used up or in mopup duty in a blowout to save other arms. That is just 10 pitchers in total which allows the Dodgers a lot of flexibility. They will have at least 6 bench slots and 1 flex slot that can go either pitcher or hitter depending on the needs that series. First series would probably include an extra hitter instead of another reliever for a total of 7 hitters off the bench. 2B: Taylor SS: Seager 3B: Turner 1B: Bellinger LF: Ethier RF: Puig C : Barnes CF: Joc Bench: Logan, Grandal, Granderson, Utley, Kike, Gonzales, Farmer And in subsequent series just drop Farmer in favor of a reliever. The guys playing the best are the ones with the most playing time. But the veterans that have contributed are still around as a well seasoned set of role players. With a couple of hot prospects thrown in to spark the team if needed.
Grandal Barnes Bellinger Forsythe Utley Seager Turner Granderson Taylor Puig Ethier Hernandez Farmer Kershaw Darvish Hill Wood Maeda Ryu Jansen Morrow Cingrani Watson Buehler Fields
Confirmed this morning.. Adrian Gonzalez is toast for the year and will NOT be on the 25 man roster, lower back tightness "We're going to shut him down so we don't cause more damage," Roberts said. "Get him ready for next year. ... I know he's very disappointed." but do you know how relieved the rest of us are? Of course to Davey this means that he can keep Ethier in the line up as his left handed pinch hitter so it's not like it's all good news
Well, 1) Dave won’t set the postseason roster. The front office will. 2) who would you prefer over Ethier as a left handed pinch hitter?
Only one I think is missing is Avilan. I’d be surprised if he didn’t make it given his success all year. It’d be him over one of Buehler, fields, or Maeda... or Ryu if they want Wood to start game 4.
It will be interesting to see how they use McCarthy going into CO. Not a bad couple of outings, but man I thought his FB would play up a little more out of the pen. Working low 90's has me bit frustrated since he can dial it up, but his stuff looked like it was moving around a good bit. With Maeda already in the pen, hard to see him and McCarthy getting two BP spots as that would mean there is only one RH in the pen that you may feel comfortable bringing in mid inning before the 8th(Morrow) as I don't think Fields is on the PO roster if BMac is. If they do go Ryu game 4 though, I could see Maeda and McCarthy in the bullpen. Ryu goes 3-4, McCarthy 1-2, Maeda 1-2, Wood 1-2, Cingrani/Watson/Avilan sprinkled in, Morrow 1, Jansen 1... that could win you a game. The bullpen to me could be so many different things. There are actually more than a couple guys that look good right now in Watson, Cingrani, Avilan, Morrow and Jansen. Wood in the pen adds another element of a potentially dominant LHP that can get both LHH and RHH out. Maeda as well induced a ton of weak contact the other night and was bringing it at 95 on top of his earlier work. If both those guys move to the BP and it plays up, that is 7 guys in the pen that can realistically give you likely 12 innings if need be of above average relief. 14-15 if McCarthy shows this week that his stuff works out of the pen as well or merely 14 if Fields is the choice. The handling of this is going to be really interesting to watch, but it does appear that the best course of action may actually be to move Wood to the pen and see if it can be a force.
Yeah Avilan is ok, I just figure with either Wood or Ryu in the bullpen, that is already 3 lefties, I might just be hoping for Buehler more than thinking he's actually gonna make it though
Oh yeah, Buehler definitely has more upside than anyone in that pen outside of Jansen and maybe Morrow but they’ll probably need more faith that they can trust he won’t have command issues
