Early Best Guess At Dodgers Opening Day Roster

World champs are stocked to the brim as pitchers and catchers report this week.

Courtesy of Walter O’Malley.com

Welp, Justin Turner is returning, so that’s one spot out of the way. The Dodgers have their third baseman, and with that, the offseason drama has concluded. Knowing Turner, he’ll already be working out Thursday when pitchers and catchers report to Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona.

There he’ll greet new starter and potential lightening rod, Trevor Bauer, and a thoroughly stocked cupboard of Los Angeles hurlers looking to make the Opening Day 26-man roster. When the full squad arrives no later than Tuesday, February 23, the defending champion Dodgers will have a good 45 men in camp who could conceivably make a contribution in 2021. I’d argue that there are more players worthy of a job this spring than there have been at any time in a generation. And yes, that includes the 106-win 2019 and the 43-17 World Series winning 2020 clubs.

Sure, Kiké Hernandez and Joc Pederson are gone and will be missed, but more so for their postseason heroics than their recent regular season play. The club is spending money — huge money — to do everything possible to repeat as champions, and while it would’ve been nice to have them back, the $13 million saved by replacing Kiké and Joc with rookies made re-signing Turner possible. And Trevor Bauer, for that matter. It’s time to find out what some of the up-and-comers can do at the major league level. And we’re going to.

Caveats: First, this is column writing, remember; it’s meant to be provocative. The objective is to foster online discussion, and keep you coming back for more. Next, obviously we have no idea about injuries or infections as we sit here on February 16, and we can’t forecast what trades and free agent signings may occur in the next six weeks, but it’s safe to say that there will be players affected in each category.

While it’s probably too early for this kind of thing, it’s my job to go out on a limb, so let’s proceed. Here is my first roster prediction of the new year. I’ll post a couple more of these before we set sail on the season.

Starting rotation (5): Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Trevor Bauer, David Price and Julio Urias.

Comment: That is a ridiculously good starting five, which will be complemented by some fine pitchers who are listed as relievers here.

Bullpen (8): Kenley Jansen, Corey Knebel, Blake Treinen, Joe Kelly, Brusdar Graterol, Victor Gonzalez, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin.

Comment: I’m cheating a little bit here because it would be unusual for the Dodgers to carry just one left-handed reliever in Gonzalez. Yes, Gonsolin has options, as does May. And yes, there is value in starting every five days in the minor leagues as opposed to relieving in the majors, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pencil Alexander in at the expense of one of the other two. A Jansen trade would solve that problem, and some others. I’ll cover that in a subsequent post. A Kelly trade is probably under consideration as we speak, which would allow for May, Gonsolin and Alexander, or another southpaw (Garrett Cleavinger, for example), one of the non-roster invitees or someone not yet in the fold to grab the spot.

I should tell you that I expect big things from May in 2021. Really big things, actually, and I don’t want him to spend a day at Triple-A Oklahoma City. I’m less sure about Gonsolin after that National League Championship Series performance (9.35 ERA, 1.737 WHIP, 6 BB) and equally-concerning World Series (6.00, 2.333).

Starting lineup (8): Mookie Betts (right field), Corey Seager (shortstop), Justin Turner (third base), Cody Bellinger (center field), Max Muncy (first base), Will Smith (catcher) AJ Pollock (left field), Chris Taylor (second base) and the pitcher’s spot (assuming for the moment that there is no DH in the National League).

Comment: An insane eight. Tell me you’re not looking forward to seeing Betts for an entire 162, no doubt in person for some of it. Seager and Turner will do their usual thing, Will Smith will continue to grow on both sides of the ball and Bellinger and Muncy will likely have better regular seasons than they did in 2020. The 2021 Dodgers are going score a ton of runs.

Bench (5): Austin Barnes (with his new two-year contract), Edwin Rios, Zach McKinstry, DJ Peters and Gavin Lux.

Comment: There are a lot of ways the bench jobs can shake out. Matt Beaty could replace Peters, Lux or McKinstry, but with those men (and Rios), that would be four left-handed bats and no right if Peters is the odd man out. I’d hoped the Dodgers would grab a switch-hitting bench man (like Jurickson Profar or Jonathan Villar) during the winter, but with the payroll shaping up as it has, it makes sense to go with major league minimum types like McKinstry (who plays six positions) and Peters (solid in all three outfield spots).

Lux: The 23-year-old former minor league hitting stud gets his own category here because I just don’t know about this guy. I may be wrong and I hope I am; Lux may turn out to be the next in a long line of Dodgers youngsters to shine in his first full season with the big club. But he just seems to have too much work to do on himself, at least for my taste.

I’m not particularly phased by the .210/.278/.377 batting line in 151 plate appearances over two seasons, although it is certainly isn’t impressive. There were concerns about both his play and his state of mind during his time at the USC alternate site in 2020 and he looked lost at the plate when he finally got the callup. There is nothing special about his baserunning ability and his infield play is at best a work in progress. An error-prone shortstop, Lux has been considerably better at second base, but he has had multiple battles with the yips — as bad as it was, Steve Sax had one — and the serial double-clutching leads to infield singles and missed double plays which wouldn’t occur otherwise. It’s fairly easy to see that he’s thinking about his throwing rather than letting it fly naturally.

Like I said, maybe I’m wrong and yet another Dodgers Rookie of the Year is in the offing. Or maybe McKinstry earns the larger left-hand-hitting part of the second base platoon and makes plays all over the diamond, ala Kiké / ala Taylor, and Lux starts the season at OKC.

Media Savvy:

If there’s a media member who oozes love of the game with fine reporting and writing more so than Tim Kurkjian, I can’t think of one. In fact, I’d take him as commish over Rob Manfred in a heartbeat. Here is Kurkjian’s Tuesday column at ESPN.com.

Veteran scribe Peter Gammons still brings it at the Athletic, this time re David Price.

For another example of a quality baseball newsletters on Substack, please see Andrew Stoeten’s the Batflip, which sports one of the coolest logos in baseball history.

And Jorge Castillo has as good an explanation of L.A.’s luxury tax situation as you’ll find anywhere, at the Los Angeles Times.

Baseball Photos of the Day:

Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow.

Sandy Koufax and Mia Farrow.

Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle.

Quote of the Week:

I’m sorry, baseball purists, but it’s time for the designated hitter in the National League. Read Cubs’ Ian Happ spot-on explanation, via Tyler Kepner at the New York Times:

“I don’t understand why we don’t have a D.H.,” Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ said last week on MLB Network Radio. “I think for both sides, for the fans, for the game, for health and safety — there’s no reason why the D.H. shouldn’t be in there. It shouldn’t be tied to anything. The D.H. makes sense for the betterment of the game. It makes sense for the future, it makes sense for keeping pitchers healthy. Nobody wants to see Max Scherzer, Jon Lester or Kyle Hendricks hit. They want to see them strike guys out; they want to see them be the aces that they are.”

I’d tweeted something similar a couple of times recently myself.

Howard Cole @Howard_Cole

@JonMorganDP Just wait till you see Buehler try to bunt for six months, risking injury on every attempt just to strike out on three pitches or bunt into a double play. And wait till you see Kersh take out the shortstop on a DP chance. It’s time.

Howard Cole @Howard_Cole

I’m not naive. I know this won’t happen, but MLB should offer the @MLB_PLAYERS the universal DH as an olive branch, no charge. The players hold the moral & logical high-ground generally & certainly do now. And are more forthcoming. Both sides would benefit. Give an inch for once.

Don’t send letters to the editor — on second thought, do, because I’m the editor. Pitchers have enough trouble batting and running the bases as a matter of course. After a year and half without so much as taking an ugly swing in batting practice, management is practically begging for pitcher injuries if they have them bat in 2021. Make the change already. It’s just time.

And remember, glove conquers all.

Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the Internet since Y2K. Follow him on Twitter. Follow OBHC on Twitter here. Be friends with Howard on Facebook.

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