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While Dustin spent some time breaking down what the Dodgers could/should/will do to counter the Padres’ recent acquisitions, one small move was made just a few hours after that post went live.
No, it wasn’t Liam Hendriks or Brad Hand or Blake Treinen or Jose Leclerc or Amir Garrett or Josh Hader (extremely ugh), it was this:
The 26-year-old, left-handed Garrett Cleavinger did not pitch much this season, with just 2/3 IP in which he allowed a homer to Robinson Cano off of a slider and a single to Jeff McNeil off of a fastball on his 10 total pitches. That was his MLB debut after spending five years in the minors where he topped out at Double-A across the previous three seasons.
I could dive deeper into some of his numbers, but Future Dodgers (who everyone should be following on Twitter) covered a fair amount of it already:
That 5.9 BB/9 was the worst in the Eastern League while the 14.5 K/9 finished fourth. Cleavinger did that across 34 games, which was 15th in the league, and yet somehow fifth on his own team.
And the other bit of info I could give you, Dustin already covered on Twitter as well (you can see why I was happy to throw this post together.)
Because he has only thrown 10 pitches in the majors, there’s not a ton of data to pull from anywhere else that hasn’t really been mentioned above. What I can point out is his (very few) pitches moved, though yes one ended up as a homer. I’m aware that’s an incredibly simple statement, but it is at least something to write when there’s very little.
For some context, the vertical movement of the curve would rank around the top 50 in baseball and matches Ross Stripling‘s 60.5 from 2020. The horizontal movement on the curve would also rank top 50, not too far behind Hyun Jin Ryu‘s 2020 results. On the three curves he threw against the Mets, he ended up with a 100 Whiff% which seems sustainable.
As for the slider, it would have ranked top 40 on vertical and top 50 on horizontal as well.
How he controls that movement is of course a problem based on his past numbers, but the Dodgers evidently saw something they liked. At the cost of Dillon Paulson (who spent 2019 in both Low-A and High-A, combining to slash 243/.366/.433/.798 with 16 HRs playing only at 1B in his professional career) and a PTBNL or cash, the Dodgers bring in a guy with plenty of team control.
That’s fine and allowed us to put up another post during an offseason that has been filled with very little news so far.
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In other very small bits of news for the day, the Dodgers made Tommy Kahnle’s two-year deal official today.
If you missed it, you can read plenty on him right here.
