2014 Dodgers In Review: SP Stephen Fife

G IP K% BB% ERA FIP xFIP WAR
MiLB (AAA) 11 43.2 13.0% 7.3% 7.01 4.23 n/a n/a
MLB 1 6.0 18.5% 3.7% 6.00 8.97 3.50 -0.3

What Happened In 2014: Squeezed in his yearly appearance for the Dodgers before having his career sidetracked by an elbow injury.

Stephen Fife was useful at some point, right? In 15 starts over 2012-13, he was never spectacular, but he was acceptable, and for the seventh-ish best starter on your depth chart, that’s a great thing to have. You never want to depend on a guy like Fife, but you always need someone like him. There’s an extremely good chance that Fife’s relatively minimal contributions will be the best out of the entire Fife / Tim Federowicz / Trayvon Robinson deal. That didn’t stop Fife from being included in the first cuts of camp in 2014, but you figured you’d need him at some point.

That point came after only about a month, after a brutal stretch in which the Dodgers were forced to play a doubleheader in frigid Minnesota on May 1, playing 21 innings that day alone, and then 11 more in Miami two days later all while putting Hyun-jin Ryu on the disabled list. On May 4, Fife came up for an emergency start against the Marlins and allowed three homers (two to Giancarlo Stanton) in six innings, then immediately was returned to the minors to add Pedro Baez.

Unfortunately, that was basically it for Fife. He made one start in the minors, missed a month with right forearm tightness, then made five more starts before leaving again with right forearm tightness. This time, it was something more serious, as he underwent Tommy John surgery in mid-August. He’ll almost certainly miss all of 2015. Nice knowing you, Stephen.

2015 status: Outrighted to Triple-A in October and then became a minor league free agent. He’ll likely spend most or all of the year on the sidelines.

About Mike Petriello

Mike writes about lots of baseball in lots of places, and right now that place is MLB.com.