Roger Arrieta
Well, I didn’t see that coming. And don’t tell me you did.
The Dodgers made a splash Friday afternoon when they traded AJ Pollock to Chicago and hauled in Craig Kimbrel, a clear move to replace Kenley Jansen after they let him get picked up by Atlanta. At first blush, the move appears to be bullpen-focused, but I’m not so sure the more important changes will be to the offense.
Before getting into what this means for defensive positioning and lineups, I highly recommend checking out this piece from MLB Trade Rumors that breaks down the very interesting financial ramifications of the deal.
In short, shipping Pollock out and bringing Kimbrel in only puts the Dodgers closer to the luxury tax threshold. It’s clear the management team is less concerned about busting through that ceiling than they are with winning another championship. But I can’t help but wonder whether it was worth it to make Kimbrel a piece that made that collision more inevitable.
As Steve Adams noted in the piece above, Kimbrel started to break down with the White Sox when he had to start pitching as a setup man for stud closer Liam Hendricks. I’ll get to more of that in a minute, but I have a sense that this trade could blow up in all of our faces.
Now, let’s talk about the movers and shakers in the Dodgers clubhouse most affected by this deal. In the pen, we obviously have Blake Treinen and Brusdar Graterol. Treinen appeared to be the next man up for saves but the hard throwing Graterol is a bit of a fan favorite and I suspect none of us would mind seeing how the 23-year-old would fare in high leverage situations.
On the other end, Pollock’s exit opens up playing time for Chris Taylor and, more intriguingly, Gavin Lux. There wasn’t any doubt Taylor was going to get at-bats this year. The Dodgers didn’t re-sign him to let him ride the pine. However, Lux’s prospects of regular time on the diamond were considerably diminished when the Dodgers signed Freddie Freeman.
Lux and Taylor can both play at the middle infield spots or in the outfield. However, with Max Muncy looking healthy, it appeared as if he would slot in at second while Trea Turner, obviously, manned short. Taylor’s bat has played enough to give him priority over Lux if one of Pollock, Cody Bellinger, or Mookie Betts needed a day off or if Dave Roberts wanted to just let one of them DH. Now, with one fewer body in the outfield, it’s likely Taylor spends more time patrolling the alleys and Lux becomes the guy to step in for those off-days.
That’s assuming Lux can put the bat on the ball like he did in the minors though.
We’ll leave out his short stints in 2019 and 2020 and just take a look at what he did last year. And folks, it’s not great. After putting together a solid .304/.381/.479 slash line with a mid .800s OPS in the minors, Lux has sagged. Last year, the 24-year-old slashed .242/.328/.364 and had a .692 OPS.
Spring training stats don’t mean much for most players but if the Dodgers were hoping Lux would take a step forward in recent weeks, it hasn’t happened. There’s a real opportunity here for Lux if he manages to find his swing. But there’s also some real risk that the Dodgers just traded out depth at a thin position to bolster what is an above-average, if not elite position of strength.
I mentioned Graterol earlier and unlike Lux, he has delivered as a Dodger, despite missing time last year with a forearm injury.
After coming over from Minnesota in 2020, Graterol has a .397 ERA, a 1.2 WHIP and 6.4 K/9. Those numbers aren’t elite, but over just 57 games, and giving him time to get healthy, they’re sure to improve with the kind of stuff he has. And in five games this spring, Graterol has allowed 1 hit over 4 innings and struck out 3.
It seems unlikely this deal got done overnight. I’m sure the front offices have been talking for a couple of days, if not weeks. But the timing sure does look suspicious if you saw Treinen get crunched a day before it happened.
Facing the Rangers on Thursday afternoon, Treinen came into the game with the Dodgers down and promptly gave up 2 home runs and didn’t strike out a batter. A week earlier, he did strike out 2 in the inning that he worked but he also gave up a hit and a run in that outing. As stated earlier, spring training stats typically don’t matter, especially for veterans like Treinen. But there’s a chance that this move for Kimbrel was made because someone isn’t convinced Treinen has the stuff to be the lockdown guy he was in Oakland.
Outside of his All-Star season in 2018, Treinen has performed everywhere from very good (he had a 1.99 ERA, .982 WHIP, and 85 Ks over 72.1 innings last year) to bad (his 4.91 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, and 59 Ks in 58 innings in 2019 stand out here).
Treinen is obviously talented, and the Dodgers seemed to eek the very best out of him last year. This was his chance to step back into a closer role after working in front of Jansen for the last two years. But the seemingly volatile Kimbrel is now here to shake that up.
Many apologies for the long wind-up, but this is the player I’m most concerned about in this trade. Kimbrel is one of the greatest closers of all time. The man is an 8-time All-Star who has a career 2.18 ERA, 0.953 WHIP, and a 14.7 K/9 ratio. He is the No. 9 all-time saves leader (four spots ahead of the man he’s replacing, by the way), and, until last year, only showed slippage in the injury-shortened 2019, and pandemic shortened 2020 seasons.
But there are serious concerns about his mindset and attitude that come along with those possible Hall of Fame numbers. If reports about his ego suffering last year when he didn’t get to serve as the White Sox go-to 9th inning guy are true, that’s not someone a bullpen in flux needs. Sure, there’s something to be said for stability. It’s great knowing you’re the guy — and it’s great for a manager to know he has that guy! — but if your performance is going to suffer without that security blanket, that sets a toxic precedent for younger guys.
The Dodgers’ bullpen is deep, if not with proven talent then at least with arms. It’s also relatively young. Kimbrel, Treinen, Daniel Hudson, and David Price are the only guys older than 30. There’s a real opportunity here to develop a deep, young crop of talented relievers that balance out the increasingly thin offense.
We went out and got our guy to close (maybe), here’s to hoping we don’t look back at this in August and wonder whether we closed the door on ourselves closing down that next title.
