PHOENIX — The solely drama for the Los Angeles Dodgers at Camelback Ranch this spring is perhaps ensuring their dwelling clubhouse has sufficient lockers to suit everybody. A herd of transportable lockers presently resides in the course of the room the place Clayton Kershaw’s ping-pong desk sat a 12 months in the past. The membership’s spring coaching roster sits at 75 gamers, and will add one more participant (and locker) with the return of Yency Almonte on a minor-league deal.
It’s an enormous camp. Not that it displays a lot by way of roster intrigue. This would be the closest factor to a traditional spring coaching the Dodgers have had since 2023. Each of the earlier two seasons began early and abroad, and each ended with a win within the ultimate sport. Winning back-to-back World Series is a good trade-off for a brief offseason. The Dodgers will slow-play their veterans in Cactus League motion this spring. They want our bodies to get by means of the slate.
“I’ve got to appreciate it’s a longer spring,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned. “If they’re going to be here for six weeks, those guys, I don’t want to come in too hot. I want to pace them out a lot.”
But this group is basically set. The Dodgers brim with expertise; look no additional than a session of stay batting observe that featured new signing Kyle Tucker going through off in opposition to the World Series MVP (Yoshinobu Yamamoto), the National League MVP (Shohei Ohtani) and Edgardo Henriquez pumping 102 mph in Tucker’s first full-squad exercise day this week.
Dave Roberts is on guard in opposition to complacency: “I expect (a lot) from myself, and everyone should expect that from themselves.” (Rick Scuteri / Imagn Images)
Everyone is happy on the heels of consecutive titles, with sights set on a 3rd. For essentially the most half, the group has remained wholesome. While Tommy Edman and Brusdar Graterol are coping with prior accidents, the Dodgers have managed to get by means of the early a part of camp unscathed.
Yamamoto has bulked up, as he has pitching prospect River Ryan. Teoscar Hernández has trimmed down. Kiké Hernández is again, guiding his fellow Puerto Rican Edwin Díaz across the facility. Díaz, the brand new nearer, has already dyed his hair bleach-blonde in preparation for subsequent month’s World Baseball Classic.
Spring coaching is all the time the beginning of the optimism season. It’s simply simpler to be ok with your self proper now for those who’re the Dodgers.
Yamamoto put his arm on the road by pitching on zero days’ relaxation in Game 7 final October. Last week, he grew to become the primary Dodger to face hitters and was as happy as anybody with how good he felt. Yamamoto goes to be the ace for Samurai Japan within the World Baseball Classic, so it made sense for him to begin early.
A day after Yamamoto’s session, Roberts was stunned to see Gavin Stone already going through hitters, a notable stride in his return from shoulder surgical procedure.
It’s straightforward to overlook that Stone led the 2024 Dodgers in innings pitched. That was imagined to be his breakout 12 months, as he logged a 3.53 ERA in 140 1/3 innings. Stone’s shoulder by no means bothered him whereas pitching, however it made the nights after and days between troublesome to get by means of. Surgery proved inevitable, and more invasive than anticipated. The process addressed his rotator cuff, capsule and labrum.
Stone threw final summer time, however briefly shut down his rehab whereas coping with a “hiccup” after his thirteenth bullpen session. That meant relaxation and solely taking part in gentle catch in the course of the Dodgers’ postseason run. Sunday marked his first time going through hitters.
It went properly.
“That,” Stone mentioned, “went a lot better than I expected it to.”
Stone touched 96 mph together with his fastball. He felt like he had good command of his signature changeup and secondary pitches. He felt nice, shut sufficient to what he felt in 2024. The Dodgers are enthusiastic about what Stone and River Ryan can convey again after their surgical procedures. Both are on schedule to begin the season, with Ryan going through hitters on a again discipline on Friday morning. Neither will pitch a full season in 2026, which implies the Dodgers nonetheless have to find out methods to handle that workload.
There’s a gap within the bullpen with Graterol’s sluggish spring, and the previous few spots again there will probably be in flux all by means of March.
That means a chance for Ben Casparius, who thrived by means of mid-June final season (2.86 ERA. 1.95 FIP in his first 22 appearances and 44 innings) and struggled later (6.95 ERA within the following 33 2/3 innings) in his rookie season.
“I think for the better part of three or four months, it was a no-brainer,” Casparius mentioned. “There was no thought really going through my head outside of attacking.”
Then, every little thing fell out of whack. His mechanics grew to become a multitude, notably his tempo as he got here down the mound. First, Casparius drove down the mound too shortly. Then, he stayed on the rubber too lengthy. He wasn’t capable of make the changes shortly sufficient. He spent his winter recalibrating.
The opening within the bullpen may very well be one other jumping-off level for Will Klein, who went from unknown to World Series hero, receiving a shoutout from Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper for example of the Dodgers’ excellence apart from their roster. The acquired Klein, revamped him and turned him into a corporation reliever who seems like he has supreme upside.
It’s loopy to suppose Klein has pitched solely 16 instances in a Dodgers uniform. He’s somebody attempting to stay. He feels higher set as much as do it now.
It begins together with his slider, a pitch the Dodgers ditched and revamped after buying Klein in June. His previous model of the pitch was a “gyro” slider, a pitch with bullet-type rotation that relied more on depth than horizontal motion. Klein’s over-the-top launch level (his arm angle is 52 levels) has made it troublesome to snap off sliders with excessive horizontal motion in the identical method he made his curveball drop.
So, assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness basically used Klein’s curveball to make his new slider.
As Klein defined his transformation on Wednesday afternoon, he grabbed a baseball. His curveball grip, he confirmed, is based on two fingers. His index finger “spikes,” bending and digging his nail into the seam whereas his center finger traces alongside one other seam. That causes one of many seams to “catch,” producing the vertical motion he needs.
Then Klein rotated the baseball 90 levels and placed on the identical grip, simply with completely different seams in play. This is his new slider.
“It just kind of catches the seams and shifts it to that 3 o’clock tilt, and that’s what gets it going left a little bit more now,” Klein mentioned. “That was something I didn’t know I could do, make it turn as much as it does.”
Klein’s previous slider generated a median of 0.6 inches of horizontal motion. His new sweeper will get 9.8 inches of horizontal break on common. It’s made an enormous distinction, particularly in opposition to right-handed hitters.
He nonetheless wants the pitch to get more constant. It’s not his go-to pitch, however it’s one that can maintain hitters trustworthy.
That’ll proceed to develop Klein’s confidence. The greatest option to battle off emotions of imposter syndrome is to maintain succeeding. Klein labored with the Dodgers’ psychological expertise employees to attempt to really feel more assured utilizing his eye-popping stuff within the strike zone.
“That was a big thing, not being afraid,” Klein mentioned. “Understanding that I’m there because I’m meant to be there. Building off of success, but being convicted first. Each pitch is the most important pitch, and make them hit this pitch. When they don’t, then you go to the next pitch. Getting results builds on itself there.”
Alex Freeland stayed again for additional work on Friday. After the day’s stay batting observe periods, and whereas his different teammates began to hit balls off a machine out on the sector, the infield prospect was the one man nonetheless engaged on his protection. It’s an enormous spring coaching for Freeland, particularly with Tommy Edman set to begin the season on the injured listing and a gap at second base. Mookie Betts is aware of this, too. The former MVP has been in Freeland’s ear for near a 12 months now, and that continues this spring. Before Freeland took some more groundballs on Friday, Betts checked in. It was a light-weight day for Betts, so he pulled the rookie apart and talked with Freeland for about 10 minutes earlier than sending him off to get to work.
Betts usually acknowledges it would not come naturally to him to be a rah-rah chief. This is the place his presence exhibits.
If you hearken to Roberts this spring, you’d suppose the Dodgers ought to begin increasing their awards cupboard at Dodger Stadium. He’s pegged Ohtani and Yamamoto as Cy Young Award front-runners. When requested this week about Betts’ odds of returning to his typical offensive kind, Roberts mentioned he expects Betts to rejoin Ohtani within the MVP dialog.
Friday, I heaped reward on Tyler Glasnow. The right-hander has all the time been gifted. After battling bodily maladies and at instances exhibiting warning when he felt one thing was off, Glasnow threw a few of that into the wind midseason. In October, he proved keen for use in reduction. Glasnow pitched Games 6 and 7 in reduction, going back-to-back for the primary time he may recall in his baseball life. Roberts and the Dodgers took discover. Maybe Glasnow confirmed himself one thing, Roberts mentioned, and may use this as a launching level.
“He’s kind of taken another step with the talent that he has,” Roberts mentioned. “He should be in the conversation — and I would expect him to say the same thing — with the best pitchers in the National League. He should be in that conversation. That should be an expectation for himself.”
Roberts likes to function in a state of limitless optimism. He’d a lot fairly reward a participant than break him down. But his enthusiasm about his roster and stars goes past simply expertise. He’s attempting to inspire them as they search a 3rd straight title.
“I expect (a lot) from myself, and everyone should expect that from themselves,” Roberts mentioned. “That’s how you get good and great and not become complacent. With the talent we have in this clubhouse, they should expect great things individually as well as collectively.”
