Cody Snavely
It has been a long two years for Los Angeles Dodgers right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler after missing the second half of the 2022 regular season and all of 2023 due to rehab from two major arm/elbow surgeries.
By the time the righty was able to return in early May this season against the Miami Marlins, fans did not know what version of Buehler they would see.
The hill Major League Baseball pitchers have to climb from just one Tommy John Surgery is insurmountable, but when you add in the factor of two surgeries in the span of seven years, the list of players having a successful career is short.
However, before we go over the 2024 season, which ended with number twenty-one closing out the eighth World Series Championship in franchise history, we must go back to the beginning.
During the 2015 collegiate baseball season, young righty Walker Buehler, who was battling a painful right elbow during his junior year at Vanderbilt, was hoping to help lead the Commodores to a second straight national title.
However, Vanderbilt fell just short in the 2015 Men’s College World Series to the University of Virginia, and just a few weeks later, Buehler opted for the Major League Baseball Draft despite his elbow’s uncertain future.
In the first round of the 2015 Major League Baseball amateur draft, the Los Angeles Dodgers would select right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler with the twenty-fourth overall pick and the first draft selection of newly signed President of Baseball Operations Andrew Freidman.
Freidman, the longtime guru behind the Tampa Bay Rays’ success in the late 2000s, knew the risks of drafting Buehler but decided to bet on the talent and the luxury of not having to rush a first-round pick for success at the big league level.
That risk was realized when Buehler needed his first career Tommy John Surgery shortly after being drafted. This sidelined him until the 2016 season when he made his professional debut in September of that year.
In many ways, Buehler was the first step in a new direction for the Dodgers as the burden of being a perennial World Series contender and having a larger payroll than most of the league, your draft begins in the much later round, and you need outside the box thinking with your drafting and development approach to sustain yearly success.
The Dodgers and Andrew Friedman would reap the rewards from their risky draft pick in Buehler. Entering the 2017 season, the righty was one of the top prospects not only in the Dodgers’ farm system but all of Major League Baseball, ranking 93rd on MLB Pipelines’ top 100 list to start the season.
After a dominant minor league career upon his return from his first career Tommy John Surgery, which saw the righty pitch 109.2 innings with a 3.05 ERA across thirty-five appearances, the Dodgers decided to call up their top arm in September.
It wasn’t the best debut month for Buehler, as his overall numbers had skyrocketed to a 7.71 ERA in 9.1 innings, but he made his mark known and would be a significant factor in the team’s 2018 plans.
Buehler would start the 2018 season in Triple-A with the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate, the Oklahoma City Dodgers; however, after a few weeks, the team would recall the righty to make his 2018 season debut against the Miami Marlins led by former skipper Don Mattingly.
Buehler would accept the recall and show he belonged at the big league level, tossing five scoreless innings, and just a few weeks later, would take a no-hitter into the 6th inning against their National League West rival, the San Diego Padres. While he wouldn’t finish the game, he was a massive part of the Dodgers’ first combined no-hitter in franchise history, which was an early accomplishment of his career.
The 2018 regular season was a frustrating year for the Dodgers. After winning 107 games in 2017 and cruising to their first National League Pennant since 1988, they were in trouble of losing the National League West to the upstart Colorado Rockies led by all-star third baseman Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story.
A 162-game season would not be enough to settle the battle, and the Dodgers would peg Walker Buehler to start a game 163 with a division title and trip to the National League Division Series on the line.
Buehler would deliver at the biggest start of his career until this point, tossing 6.1 scoreless innings as the Dodgers would go on to win and host the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS.
It would be a string of great dominant starts in the postseason for Buheler, who would be known for pitching big games for the rest of his career.
While the righty had a blip in his first official postseason start where the Braves would tag him for five earned runs capped off by a grand slam by then-rookie Ronald Acuña Jr.
Buehler rebounded nicely in his next two starts that postseason, which ended in a 2018 World Series loss to the 108-win Boston Red Sox. But before that, Buehler pitched a winner-take-all game seven of the National League Division Series and a masterful game three of the World Series, holding the Red Sox scoreless through seven shutout innings.
2018 would be Buehler’s coming-out party, as many saw him as the great Clayton Kershaw‘s successor after an excellent rookie campaign. In 137.1 innings, he posted a 2.62 ERA en route to a third-place finish in the National League Rookie of the Year Award.
In a way, it was the start of a string of great seasons by the young right-handed pitcher from Lexington, Kentucky, as from his debut season in 2018 until 2021, Buheler would have a combined record of 39-13 with a 2.82 ERA, the fourth lowest in that span (deGrom, 1.94, Verlander, 2.56, Scherzer, 2.74)
The 2021 season is where Buehler put it all together, pitching the best year of his career with a 2.47 ERA, 0.968 WHIP, and 3.16 FIP in a career-high 207.2 innings pitched, making his second career All-Star game and finishing fourth in the National League Cy Young vote.
However, just as his career started to take off, it would all come crashing down.
During the 2021 postseason, Buehler would pitch an additional 18.1 innings, concluding with starting game six of the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves when the trade deadline acquisition and pending free agent Max Scherzer could not make a start, stating he had suffered from the dead arm, Buehler would take the ball on three days rest.
Buehler would take the loss, and the Dodgers would pack their bags and go home, while the Atlanta Braves would party on to a World Series championship.
Buehler opened the season as the Dodgers’ Opening Day starter in 2022, but by June 10th, the righty was placed on the 15-day injured list with right elbow discomfort after posting an uncharacteristic 4.02 ERA in sixty-five innings.
The Dodgers’ and Buehler’s worst fears were realized, as the righty would have to undergo two major arm surgeries: arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in his elbow and his second career Tommy John surgery, which would end his 2022 season and likely sideline him until 2024.
After a long hiatus, Buehler finally returned to the field this season in early May, facing the same Miami Marlins against whom he made his 2018 debut.
However, it became clear that Walker Buehler was not the “same” Walker we had all watched grow into a postseason hero and potential ace of the rotation.
By the middle of the season, on August 14th, after missing a full month away from the team trying to reinvent himself at a private Florida facility, Buehler currently had one win and four losses with a 5.58 ERA, 1.562 WHIP, and 6.30 FIP while also posting career lows in H/9 (10.9), HR/9 (2.5), BB/9 (3.1), and K/9 (7.6).
When it came to the Dodgers’ postseason roster predictions, many left the righty off, stating he was more of a burden than someone who could help the team this season.
I’ll admit I was one of the many who had doubts, but when right-handed pitchers Tyler Glasnow and rookie Gavin Stone had their seasons end prematurely due to injuries, the message was clear: if the Dodgers were going to win, they’d need Buehler to pitch well.
Out of pure necessity, the Dodgers would need Buehler to pitch in the postseason and start multiple games if they were to go on a deep run in October.
The first task for Buehler would be the scorching hot San Diego Padres, who just beat up the Atlanta Braves in the wild-card round and split the first two games at Dodger Stadium in the NLDS.
It could not have gone worse for the Dodgers righty as he allowed six “earned” runs after his defense behind him played poorly in an inning that was capped off by a Fernando Tatís Jr. two-run home run, giving the Padres a 6-1 lead.
Despite being down 2-1 in the series, the Dodgers would fight their way back, forcing a game five and winning the series in five games, moving on to the NLCS for the first time since 2021.
Buehler got his chance at redemption in the NLCS against the red-hot New York Mets, pitching four scoreless innings in the cold East Coast weather in Citi Field. In the World Series back at Yankee Stadium, Buehler put the Dodgers up 3-0 in the series after five more scoreless frames.
Despite Buehler finishing the 2024 regular season with a 1-6 record, 5.38 ERA, 5.54 FIP, 1.55 WHIP, .316 BABIP, and career worsts in Hard Hit percentage (41%), strikeout percentage (18.6%), and walk percentage (8.1%), he would end the 2024 postseason with thirteen consecutive scoreless innings, capped off by closing out the World Series, bringing his rise and fall in full circle.
While the injury bug hit Buehler hard and the road to glory was stressful and intense, Buehler still lived up to his name as a big game pitcher, improving on not only his postseason stat line (4-4, 3.04 ERA in 94.2 innings pitched) but was now 2-0 in four World Series appearances with a 0.47 ERA, one save, twenty-four strikeouts in nineteen innings pitched.
With Buehler now entering free agency, it will be interesting to see if he and the Dodgers can agree on a deal to bring the righty back.
At the tail end of his season, Buehler showed that despite not being the same pitcher he was three seasons ago, he could still get the job done at the biggest level. For a team that employs postseason heroes Chris Taylor and Kiké Hernández, despite their lackluster regular-season performances, I have no reason why the Dodgers shouldn’t give him another shot.
However, Buehler could have pitched himself to a multi-year deal elsewhere, with the Cincinnati Reds already being the first destination rumored this offseason, but with Buhler making his love for the team and the city of Los Angeles known during the parade, I find it problematic that Andrew Friedman after nine years at the helm would let his first-round pick walk in free agency after watching Buehler close out the World Series.
After seven long years in Dodger Blue, when then Dodgers’ new President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman took a risk on drafting the skinny flame-throwing kid from Vanderbilt, the Dodgers have reaped the rewards as Friedman’s vision has finally come to fruition with Buehler etching his name in Dodger lore forever winning the franchises eighth World Series title, the second in four seasons and if this is genuinely the end we can all sit back and smile and appreciate what was Walker “Butane” Buehler.
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