Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — Amidst the hoopla surrounding the Freddie Freeman, deal the Dodgers’ front office was not just running around the office high-fiving each other today, although I’m sure there was some of that. But also, they got right to work shoring up the pitching staff. They signed one-time All-Star Shane Greene to a minor league deal, and perhaps more importantly, they are closing in on another one-year deal for free-agent pitcher Danny Duffy.
Formerly of the Kansas City Royals, Duffy is a pickup that could reap big rewards later in the season. A veteran presence on the the mound, the 33-year-old lefty was in the midst of a monster year when he went down with an elbow injury before the trade deadline. Duffy had a 2.51 ERA and 1.21 WHIP over the 61 innings he pitched this past season, and although it was a small sample size, they were by far the best numbers Duffy has put up in the last few years. His best year with the Royals was 2016, when he went 12-3 and put up a 3.53 ERA.
The Dodgers traded for Duffy at the end of last year, hoping that he’d be available down the stretch, but the elbow never made it back in time for Duffy to join the big league club. But now, with another four months of rehab under his belt, Duffy is ready to go, and the Dodgers took on yet another low-risk, high reward signing that just might come in handy to at the very least eat up some innings so that the big horses in the lineup can stay fresh into October.
Though Freeman will get all the ink, these little nickel and dime deals will be what carries the Dodgers through the long 162-game campaign. Jimmy Nelson also came back into the fold today, so the Dodgers are doing all they can to shore up their arms before the beginning of the 2022 season. As we learned the hard way last year, we need all the pitching we can get our hands on.
