Steve Webb
Corey Knebel, the right-handed reliever lately of the Milwaukee Brewers, was acquired by the Dodgers right before the non-tender deadline for cash and/or a player to be named later on Wednesday of last week, marking the first major pick-up the Boys in Blue have made this off season. The acquisition is interesting in a number of ways. On one hand, Knebel has shown flashes of brilliance during his Major League career. His 2017 campaign, in which he posted a microscopic 1.78 ERA over 76 appearances, was good enough to land the 29-year-old Texan on the National League All Star team. In fact, the righty set an MLB record that year, starting the season with 45 consecutive appearances with at least one strikeout, besting a mark set by Aroldis Chapman. Dodgers fans will also recall Knebel was solid in his several NLCS outings in 2018, notching a save in Game 1 and a win in Game 6.
However, Tommy John surgery has since derailed his career, putting him on the shelf in all of 2019. The 2020 season saw Knebel posting a forgettable 6.08 ERA over just 13 innings of work in a less-than-triumphant return to the mound. And, with the continued filthiness of Josh Hader and the emergence of Rookie of the Year Devin Williams, the Brewers bullpen had little room for Knebel’s services going forward.
Enter the Dodgers. With the Dodger bullpen being a bit of an inconsistent question mark all of 2020, Andrew Friedman is surely on the lookout for reinforcements. The Knebel pickup has echoes of the Blake Treinen signing of last year: a formerly outstanding reliever, coming off a bad season and looking for redemption. In Treinen’s case, Friedman’s gamble paid off for the most part, especially given Kenley Jansen’s inconsistency late in the year. Friedman is hoping for more of the same from Knebel.
There are signs that point to the move being a good investment. After an abysmal August of 2020, Knebel finished the year strong, posting a solid 2.70 ERA in the final month of the season. So without having to give up any top prospects, the Dodgers must have figured that they had the luxury to take a flyer on Knebel. The hurler relies on a knuckle curve with a good bite and a fastball that can hit 98 on the gun on a good day, although the Brewers had concerns about his velocity after his Tommy John. He might turn out to be the second coming of Jimmy Nelson (remember him?), but he might just as easily become a useful weapon in the Dodger bullpen, one that figures to have quite a few new arms added to it by the end of the off-season.
