Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
You’ve probably heard by now due to the retirement, unretirement, and retirement happening in the span of like two days, but Chris Taylor clarified that he’s done.
An incomplete highlight reel by MLB, but a highlight reel nonetheless.
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The Athletic: Andy Pages was once considered a potential future DH, and his journey to being an elite centerfielder essentially came down to his work ethic.
“I could sit here in hindsight and say, ‘Oh yeah, I did,’ but no,” Ebel said Sunday morning, after the two completed their daily drills to refine Pages’ standing as one of the game’s preeminent defensive center fielders. “I mean, the guy’s worked extremely hard.”
“We’re working on all the different things I’ve struggled with, trying to improve those every day,” Pages said in Spanish. “It’s the only way to get better.”
And thank god he did, because the Dodgers have had outfield problems for years now, and his emergence solved an absolutely massive question mark.
The Athletic: Why did Tanner Scott suck last year? Seems so simple: tooo many shitty two-strike pitches, basically.
“I’d get the two strikes, and I’d leave the ball in the heart of the plate, and it was causing a lot of damage,” Scott said.
The Dodgers knew this and stressed the point to Scott last season. Scott knew this, too, but the struggles were already deep. When he did miss his spots, the ball wound up over the middle instead of out of the zone, where he might have been able to induce a swing-and-miss. Opposing hitters didn’t miss, and Scott got crushed to the tune of a 4.74 ERA while serving up 11 home runs.
“Last year was weird because he came in and he was throwing a ton of strikes,” Prior said. “Problem is, he was throwing strikes at the wrong times.”
Mark Prior clarified that it wasn’t the Dodgers’ idea to make him do that, lol.
Prior said Scott’s uptick in strike-throwing, especially late in counts, was not the Dodgers’ idea. Some of it, Prior said, is “the volatility of a pitcher.” The club worked with him to make some tweaks to Scott’s mental cues, trying to ensure that in the times when he inevitably missed, he didn’t miss in spots where opponents could slug. Every step forward was followed by a step back.
This tracks because he’s doing a lot of the same things this year as last year but simply isn’t making as many horrible mistakes once he gets ahead, and it now has him delivering elite results.
The clean slate of a new year helped him get right mentally as well.
“I just tried washing it away,” Scott said. “Literally, when January 1 happened, new year, new — just going back to what I used to do and just being yourself and trusting your ability and believing your stuff. (It’s) kind of going out there with a ‘F you, F it,’ like mindset, and just rolling.”
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FanGraphs: Shohei Ohtani still has a deep arsenal, but he’s simplified his mix depending on handedness. It’s basically fastball and sweeper against righties, and fastball, sweeper, split against lefties.
In Ohtani’s second season as a Dodgers pitcher, he’s gone for simplicity. Two pitches for righties, three for lefties. He’s still throwing the other three pitches occasionally, but they’re only to be broken out for special occasions.
The plan makes sense, and it’s always nice to have 2-3 other pitches to turn to if he needs to give them something new the third time through and/or a pitch just isn’t working the way it’s supposed to in an outing.
Pitcher List: They say Max Muncy‘s start is legit, citing his swing decisions, but I also think it’s probably legit just because … I mean he’s done stuff like this before.
Verdict: Legit. Yeah, this is going to be one of Muncy’s better career seasons when all is said and done. His rolling chart shows a meteoric rise in power, which, combined with decent decision-making and some of the best contact ability he’s shown in his career. He also gets that boost playing in a stacked lineup, which will allow him to get a lot of RBIs and runs throughout the season.
Really the primary obstacle to him being even better than he has over the past 4-5 years is the constant injuries.
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Baseball America: Mike Sirota was named among the prospects with impressive 90th percentile exit velocity so far (108.1 MPH).
A promotion should be coming soon, however, as Sirota is showing outstanding swing decisions and power. There’s some swing-and-miss in the zone, but it’s at an acceptable level, and he chases just 10% of the time.
Sirota has a great blend of approach, power and contact. If he can stay healthy, he has all-star upside.
Baseball Prospectus: Chase Harlan was a prospect that merited a mention recently for his toolsy upside.
Selected 98th-overall in the 2024 MLB Draft out of a Pennsylvania high school, the now 19-year-old third baseman has impressed at Single-A Ontario, slashing .336/.486/.469 with nine extra-base hits, including two home runs, across 32 games. Harlan’s advanced offensive approach has been reflected by an impressive 31-to-28 walk-to-strikeout ratio over 148 plate appearances. He demonstrates a strong feel for the strike zone, recognizes spin well, and uses the whole field. While the home run power is still developing, the foundation for an impact offensive profile is evident. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, Harlan possesses a strong, projectable frame with room to add strength and grow into greater power production. Despite his size, he’s a good athlete with the agility and arm strength to remain at third base long-term. With his blend of athleticism, instincts, and offensive upside, Harlan projects as a potential everyday, run-producing third baseman.
Honestly, that’s a more impressive upside than I would’ve predicted already from like a third-round pick in A-ball.
MLB Pipeline: Cam Leiter was listed as a pleasant surprise in 2026.
When the Dodgers drafted Leiter in the second round out of Florida State last July, he hadn’t pitched since developing shoulder issues in March 2024 and having cleanup surgery seven months later. They gambled that his premium stuff would come back and it has in his pro debut, as he’s dealing with an upper-90s fastball and upper-80s slider while expertly killing spin on a low-90s changeup. The latest in the long line of pitching Leiters — father Kurt reached Double-A while uncles Al and Mark and cousins Jack and Mark Jr. made it to the Majors — has compiled a 2.40 ERA with a 37 percent strikeout rate in 15 innings.
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The Athletic: Everybody is stealing bases now. Because of bigger bases? No. Because of the disengagement rule? No. Because of he pitch clock, actually.
The clock, players say, shifted the sense of pressure and control. A runner’s timing used to be at the mercy of the pitcher, who could hold the ball and vary his delivery to build uncertainty. Now, the pitcher’s timing — and his attention — is at the mercy of the clock, and as those 18 seconds tick, pressure builds not on the runner, but on the pitcher, who becomes more predictable when working within such a limit. Base runners can better pick up on tendencies and time their jumps, replacing hesitancy with certainty as they decide whether to break for second base.
Again, a lot of it still comes down to scouts.
One player noted that advance scouts — now armed with more camera angles with which to analyze opposing pitchers — have gotten very good at picking up tendencies and tells, and runners can look for those cues while knowing more or less exactly when a pitcher has to make his decision about throwing a pitch or picking off. One advance scout noted that, despite the clock, pitchers today take a long time to come set, giving them even less time to hold the ball and make runners question their intention.
“Combined with the two-disengagement rule which eliminates frequent pickoffs, teams have a better idea of when a pitcher is going to the plate and more confidence that there won’t be a pickoff,” the scout said. “That’s why some teams/players use the early hop-jumps to steal bases. It’s a calculated risk.”
Even before a pitcher runs out of pickoff attempts, the pitch clock limits his options and gives runners a set time in which to watch for those tells and tendencies. The clock itself ticks against the pitcher while serving as a starting gun for the runner.
This is sorta like what the Steroid Era did for power, IMO. Yes, the top-end can also get more, but the real impact is the baseline amount being raised and more guys having 10-20 steals now that wouldn’t otherwise.
Since 2023, more players than ever before have reached double digit steals, and even when allowing for 1990s expansion, the rate of 10-steal seasons has been equal or greater than most seasons in the 1980s and up significantly from the previous two decades.
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Just finished watching this on my vacation and it’s great. Not sure how Jeff Passan got John Schneider (and Dave Roberts) to agree, but a lot of insight.
