Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
It’s now been over a month since Spring Training kicked off for the Dodgers at Camelback Ranch, and there’s been a lot going on during the games. However, there’s also a bunch of news happening apart from that, like new pitches, swing changes, and even trades.
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With three pitches, Tyler Glasnow already had Dodger fans dreaming about his upside in the rotation, and we’ve already seen how that could look this Spring. However, he’s apparently also working on another pitch: a two-seam fastball.
Glasnow has spent the spring working on a two-seam fastball that’s running at 99 mph. Complementing his elite slider and curveball with a blistering sinker to go along with his high-velocity four-seam fastball borders on unfair.
It’s especially interesting because as some guy pointed out, he doesn’t seem like an obvious fit for the pitch, though it’s a change to watch regardless.
Really interested to see if Tyler Glasnow can make this new sinker work, because he's the most north-south SP in baseball by a lot.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) March 5, 2024
This list is read as: most pitches thrown with less than 3 inches of horiz break (any direction), by SP w 250 P min.
–> https://t.co/zIvBp3tilR pic.twitter.com/LrHkVE2tLu
Speaking of changes, Chris Taylor famously made one to his swing back in 2017, adding lift to his swing and thus changing the path of his career. Well he recently spoke about making a swing change again this off-season, but this time in the other direction.
Taylor finds it easier to do a lot of that work during the offseason, making his biggest swing changes and adjustments away from the day-to-day competition in season. This winter, the focus was on creating a flatter bat path that will produce more line drives and more frequent contact.
“There’s a lot to it. But I think my path is better,” he said. “I worked really hard on basically creating a flatter bat path this offseason. I feel like I’ve even over-adjusted a little bit where I’ve been over fastballs. I can’t even remember the last time I was doing that. I feel like when I’m on time I’m hitting more line drives right now.”
It’s been back-to-back down years for him, so hopefully the results of this change ends up being similarly successful to the one he made before.
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One story I apparently missed entirely was that Enrique Hernandez says he has basically been playing hurt since 2021.
When he innocuously slipped in the outfield late during his first season with the Boston Red Sox in 2021, both he and the club’s staff felt Hernández was simply dealing with tightness in his hip.
Come the next spring, the issue persisted. The utilityman felt discomfort while running, spurring a string of blood tests to find a cause. Those tests came back clean. An MRI revealed issues with Hernández’s psoas muscle — a series of muscles that overlay his vertebral column — along with his upper and lower abdomen. That cost him a chunk of the 2022 season as it required a procedure that drained blood from his spine to address a hematoma in the region along with receiving a PRP shot.
Now though, he hopes that his health woes have been addressed thanks to a double hernia surgery he had this off-season.
Hernández’s scans were clean ahead of the 2023 season, but he continued to deal with pain in the area as he struggled at the plate, his production only slightly bouncing back after a midseason trade brought him back to Los Angeles. It took until after the Dodgers’ season last year for Hernández to again address it, this time with double hernia surgery performed by Dr. William Meyers in Philadelphia.
“Both sides on my adductors, my abs were off the pelvis,” Hernández said after inking a one-year, $4 million deal to return to the Dodgers this week.
“When you’re playing in pain, you’re not having that much fun, and especially when you’re in pain (and) they tell you that you’re fine, that there’s nothing wrong, it makes you doubt yourself and makes you think a million things at a time,” Hernández continued. “I never thought I’d say that I was looking forward to surgery — but I was really looking forward to the surgery.”
Enrique’s struggles on offense was the focus of the article, but the defensive slide had been what stood out to me. I had assumed it was entirely the product of typical age-related decline and being forced to play shortstop full-time, but having hip/groin issues could certainly explain some of what happened as well. So this news provides solid hopium for a bounce back season from him.
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Clayton Kershaw being put on the 60-day IL was always going to happen, but how they filled that 40-man roster spot was a surprise, as they traded for utilityman Andre Lipcius from the Tigers in exchange for cash considerations.
The 25-year-old Lipcius was a third round pick in the 2019 draft, and made his MLB debut for the Tigers last year. In 13 games and 38 plate appearances, he put up a .286/.342/.400/.742 line, mostly while manning third base. Across four minor-league seasons, he has a .266/.358/.409/.767 line with 220 walks and 323 strikeouts, showcasing a strong contact profile with a discerning eye. Last year in AAA, he put up a .272/.363/.419/.782 slash, splitting time between third, second base, first base, and left field (with a cameo in right).
Lipcius basically profiles as utility depth for the team, with his two option years and six years of team control likely being particularly appealing.
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Matt Kemp is returning to the Dodgers in an advisory role.
The Dodgers are expected to reunite with a fan favorite, bringing former All-Star outfielder Matt Kemp back into the fold in an advisory role, a league source confirmed to The Athletic.
While the role isn’t finalized yet, the 39-year-old is expected to return to the organization where he spent his first nine seasons before returning for a one-year All-Star run in 2018. Kemp’s expected hire was first reported by USA Today.
The three-time All-Star finished second in National League MVP voting in 2011, finishing a homer shy of what would’ve been the lone 40-homer, 40-stolen base season in franchise history.
Not even the Dodgers seem to know what this means yet, but … he’s back!
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Shohei Ohtani in GQ JAPAN? Shohei Ohtani in GQ JAPAN.
【表紙解禁】
— GQ JAPAN (@GQJAPAN) February 28, 2024
4月号（特別版）の表紙を飾るのは、大谷翔平！
3月1日（金）発売の『GQ JAPAN』はリニューアル後初のファッション特集。お見逃しなく。
▼詳細はこちらhttps://t.co/PCO0lVfQEm#GQJAPAN #大谷翔平 #ShoheiOhtani pic.twitter.com/v0PBx1ecRb
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I am getting dangerously excited about the Dodgers and must restrain my optimism.
