Pitchers Break. Doing Nothing is a Mistake.

Tony Gonsolin is the latest casualty.

Jun 09, 2025

The columnist has discovered AI, apparently. Which is frightening.

Also frightening is the notion that the Dodgers either do not know why their pitchers are breaking down at the alarming rate they are, or they have chosen to forge ahead, hope for the best and spend their way out of a mess of their own making. And that, my friends, is the definition of insanity.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I used AI for that too. Since I had the app open and all. And because I’m smarter than the secretary of education who thought “AI” was “A1,” like the steak sauce.

But here’s the thing. AI informs me that a bottle of A1 Sauce can be had for $4.18. So if you break one — or 14, since the Boys in Blue have placed 14 pitchers on the injured this season — you can replace it for pennies (418 of them). But unlike pitchers, the supply of A1 Sauce is unlimited, and any one bottle is as good the next.

Los Angeles is plum out of pitchers. And for whatever reason — stubbornness, hubris, malpractice — the L.A. brass has forged ahead, hoped for the best and tried to spend their way out of a mess of their own making.

Big boss Andrew Friedman will tell you he has tried to “solve for pitching,” which is corporate-speak for “we’re searching for enough pitchers to get through a season.” Which is insufficient.

AF’s most recent public statement on the matter (thanks, AI) is from mid-May: “I said this a lot, and I think anyone who doesn’t say it is not being honest. There’s a lot we don’t know about injury stuff, and I think it’s important not to pretend like we have all the answers. There’s a lot to it that is really challenging, and we’re hoping to continue to grow and learn from experiences and just try to make the smartest, best move we can, knowing we’re going to make mistakes.”

Translation: Baseball is challenging, we have an idea what the problem is, we are not going to share it with you, we’re changing absolutely nothing and we’re going to forge ahead, hoped for the best and try to spend own way out of it.

L.A. hurlers on the IL are as follows: Luis Garcia (abductor), Tyler Glasnow (shoulder), Tony Gonsolin (elbow), Brusdar Graterol (shoulder), Michael Grove (labrum surgery), Edgardo Henriquez (undisclosed), Kyle Hurt (Tommy John surgery), Evan Phillips (Tommy John), River Ryan (Tommy John), Roki Sasaki (shoulder), Emmet Sheehan (Tommy John), Blake Snell (shoulder), Gavin Stone (shoulder surgery), Blake Treinen (forearm). Clayton Kershaw, Michael Kopech and Kirby Yates have all returned from their IL stints.

Nineteen pitchers on the Dodgers 40-man roster have had Tommy John surgery. Eleven have not. Another Tommy John patent, Shohei Ohtani, who is not on the IL, is a special case. He was developed in Japan and Anaheim, was injured during his time with the Angels, is contributing as much as a player possibly can, and is worth every penny of his salary even if he never throws another pitch.

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I’m reminded of the old joke about George Orwell. Fine, I used AI for the exact wording: “I wrote ‘1984’ as a warning, not an instructions manual.” The same goes for Dodgers chairman and CEO, Mark Walter, who didn’t coin the phrase “pitchers break” recommending that his management team do just that. In fact, quite the opposite.

Yet here we are in the midst of another season where the front office and skipper Dave Roberts are struggling to field a five-man starting rotation (six was always folly). Struggling since April, I might add, when both Snell and Glasnow were lost to the team for months, with the Glasnow mess being entirely predictable.

Perhaps the Dodgers don’t win the 2024 World Series without Glasnow’s career-high 10 victories, career-high 22 starts or career-high 140 innings, as if those accomplishments should be the metric. And it’s no small point that he wasn’t available for either the stretch run or the postseason. But it was Friedman’s choice to award the big right-hander with a $136.5 million contract extension before he threw a pitch for Los Angeles, and to trade promising big right-hander, Ryan Pepiot, to the Rays to get him. While Pepiot may be the less spectacular of the two, I’d argue he’s already the better pitcher, working for a relative pittance, and very much available and contributing (see below, no AI required).

I’m skeptical that Friedman has applied much seriousness to the serial breaking of his team’s wings, and I know he hasn’t commissioned a study. But Major League Baseball has, with the results, released last December, confirming the obvious:

1) There was a broad consensus that pitchers chasing max-effort velocity and "stuff" is driving the increase in injuries.

Let’s be clear. The Dodgers train their pitchers specifically to achieve maximum spin rate, swing-and-miss and velocity (or “velo” in the parlance). That’s important not just in terms of wins and losses, but because the injuries caused are career-changing for young pitchers. Unlike Glasnow, they’re not set for life whether they take the ball or not. Or in Glasnow’s case, whether he takes that ball but trudges off the mound after a one, two or fours inning, which is precisely what he’s managed in three of his five 2025 starts.

It’s also important to note that in addition to developing their own pitchers in this manner, L.A. actively seeks to acquire others who already possess these kinds of skills. Exclusively, over and over again, leaving the more reliable, “innings eaters,” which somewhere along the way became a pejorative, to sign short-term contracts with other organizations for less money. Much less money.

I’ve made the observation so many times over the years I almost can’t anymore. Almost. With Gonsolin out and Landon Knack in Oklahoma City at least until June 21, the Dodgers now sport a rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May, all of whom have recent injury history, plus Justin Wrobleski and most likely Bobby Miller, heading into a pivotal nine-game stretch of the season. They’re at San Diego Monday through Wednesday, then after an open date, play at San Francisco Friday through Sunday before coming home to face the Padres again at Chavez Ravine.

This is an emergency, people. See AI-generated ER tent. For both the current health status of the Dodgers starters and the future health of scores of minor league pitchers. Perhaps secondarily, it’s a pennant race emergency. The Dodgers are proceeding as they have for the entirety of Friedman administration, which began in 2014.

While the financial considerations may be the least of our concerns, I wrote about Friedman’s wasteful spending, and how it was hurting the club way back 2016, tallying $268 million of Guggenheim’s money thrown straight into the Pacific Ocean. Two years into Friedman’ tenure. I imagine I could come up with twice or even three times that $268 million figure now, if I were so inclined.

I’m not so inclined. Because the solution is beyond simple. Stop playing with your pitchers’ health, Andrew Friedman. Stop hamstringing your field boss. Stop wasting your boss’s money. And memo to Mr. Walter: you might want to stop with the hands-off approach. Friedman could use a stern lecture. Or better yet, an intervention.

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Tweets of the Week:

Media Savvy:

You knew this was coming: “The implications of Corbin Burnes’ season-ending injury go far beyond the Diamondbacks,” by Ken Rosenthal at the Athletic.

Here’s something I did not know: “How ex-MLB player Eric Anthony learned his dad was Dodgers legend Willie Davis, by Bob Nightengale at the Athletic.

Here is “Ukrainian baseball team welcomes Florida distraction away from war at home,” by Mark Skol, Jr. at Fox 13 News Tampa Bay.

And three from baseball historian Bill Arnold:

1. The LSU Shreveport Pilots are the first college team to finish a season undefeated, going 59-0 and winning the NAIA World Series. Three Pilots hitters clocked averages above .400: Cooper Huspen (.533), Josh Gibson (.439), and Ryan Davenport (.425). The team's ace pitcher, Isaac Rhode, meanwhile, compiled a spotless 16-0 record. The previous bests for a baseball team in the college ranks were scored by Division I's Arizona State (64 wins, 4 losses in 1972), Division II's Savannah State (46-3, 2000), and Division III's Trinity College (45-1, 2008).

2. According to the stat lords at Baseball Reference, Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi became the sixth Japanese-born pitcher to reach at least 900 career strikeouts when he whiffed the Red Sox's Jarren Duran in the fourth inning of Tuesday's game. He joins Yu Darvish (2,007 K's), Hideo Nomo (1,918), Kenta Maeda (1,055), Masahiro Tanaka (991), and Hiroki Kuroda (986).

3. “[Through Thursday’s games], only 13 players have smacked 30 or more hits on a two-strike count: Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees - 35 hits), Bobby Witt Jr. (Royals - 34), Wilmer Flores (Giants - 33), Brice Turang (Brewers - 33), Francisco Lindor (Mets - 32), Steven Kwan (Guardians - 32), Andy Pages (Dodgers - 31), Jose Ramirez (Guardians - 31), Austin Riley (Braves - 31), Luis Arraez (Padres - 31), Alejandro Kirk (Blue Jays - 31), Jackson Chourio (Brewers - 30), and Bryson Stott (Phillies - 30).

Baseball Photos of the Week:

Dave Stieb, who lost three no-hitters in the ninth inning, twice with two outs in back-to-back starts in 1988, and one an out away from a perfect game in 1989. He seals the deal the next season, pitching the only no-no in Blue Jays history.