Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin Have Proven Themselves Worthy of Playoff Roster Spots
It’s an interesting time in Los Angeles as the Dodgers are essentially holding tryouts for the final few spots left in their playoff bullpen contingent. Last week, I took a look at the Dodgers’ potentially historic 2016 draft class. This week, we’ll dive a bit deeper into the Dodgers bullpen as they head toward October.
With a massive lead in the division and a surefire playoff bid, the team can afford to mix and match different guys into different situations to see how they perform, but the results so far have been somewhat lackluster.
Neither Caleb Ferguson nor JT Chargois have proven themselves to be very reliable or stable. Although they’ve each shown signs of life, they both have tended to veer towards volatility as opposed to consistency.
Then there’s the enigma of Yimi Garcia, who while holding batters to a .197 average and sporting a 0.88 WHIP, has been prone to the long ball, giving up home runs in 3 of this last four outings, and 13 on the season. I don’t imagine any of these three will be on the roster in postseason.
The team carried eight relievers in the postseason last year, and the way I see it, five of the spots for this year’s team are guaranteed:
You also have to figure Adam Kolarek will be on the roster after the team traded for him at the deadline, and could use another left-hander to pair with Urias, but I’m not quite ready to call him a lock just yet due to the small sample size we’ve seen of him thus far.
A guy who could very well make the cut come playoff time is Casey Sadler. He has done very well in his time with the Dodgers throwing 12.1 innings while only surrounding one run on seven hits, four walks, and eight strikeouts.
Given the struggles of the rest of the competing guys in the Dodgers’ bullpen and with Dylan Floro being a question mark, Sadler looks to be in prime position to be rostered in the postseason. He’s currently in AAA Oklahoma City as the Dodgers continue to audition other players in various roles.
Adding on Kolarek and Sadler, that leaves two spots, including the team’s fourth postseason starter, which is a major question mark at the moment.
Dave Roberts has said Rich Hill probably wont have enough time to work back up to starter level, and Ross Stripling is shelved indefinitely, leaving the two real options outside of Kenta Maeda to be Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May.
These two rookies have been very impressive in their limited time with the club.
Dustin May particularly has shown signs of greatness in his three starts:
5.2 IP 3ER 2K 0BB
5.2 IP 1ER 7K 1BB
5.2 IP 1ER 5K 1B
When using his cutter, a pitch he throws 30% of the time, May is holding opponents to a .176 batting average. On his sinker, his primary pitch (50.7% usage), opposing hitters are hitting .273. With a little bit more game experience and tweaking leading to slightly better command, I expect that average to go down and for May to transition from good to phenomenal.
There’s no question there’s a place for him on the postseason roster, it’s just a matter of if he will fill in as the fourth starter, or be used as a weapon out of the bullpen a la David Price with the Rays in his rookie year.
I don’t believe the team will use Kenta Maeda as their fourth starter, so I believe what role they assign May will be determined by Rich Hill’s ability to come back from injury quickly and effectively.
While he’s currently in AAA Oklahoma City while other pitchers make their case for a spot in the playoff bullpen, Tony Gonsolin performed very well in his two recent outings with the Dodgers.
4.0 IP 1ER 3K 0BB SV
6.0 IP 0ER 7K 1BB W
Despite it only being two games, Gonsolin proved he has big league quality stuff.
He features four pitches (four seam fastball, split finger, slider, curve) and has shown great command thus far.
Prior to 2018 when he transitioned into a starting role, Gonsolin was a reliever for most of his career in the minor leagues, so if they don’t use him as the team’s fourth starter, you would think the Dodgers would utilize that past bullpen experience in the postseason.
For me right now it looks like this:
Hyun-Jin Ryu, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, May
Jansen, Kelly, Baez, Maeda, Urias, Kolarek, Gonsolin, Sadler
Again, this really depends on what, if anything, the team will get from Rich Hill when he returns from his injury, so I’m playing out the scenario where he isn’t quite capable of successfully contributing in the postseason.
If Hill does come back able and effective, I’d expect Sadler to get bumped off before May or Gonsolin.
I don’t see a real scenario where Dustin May isn’t on this playoff roster, and it’s looking more and more like there won’t be any scenario’s where Gonsolin is left off either.
The tryout period has a ways to go, and Dave Roberts and the Dodgers will continue experimenting with different guys in different situations simply because they can afford to.
The Dodgers offense is firing on all cylinders, and this experimentation period hasn’t quite cost them that much so far, as they remain very much in play for securing home field advantage throughout the playoffs. If the team sacrifices a few games here and there in the coming weeks in order to avoid a Ryan Madson scenario, this experiment period will be well worth it.
– David Rosenthal (@_therealdrose)
