Dodgers fans were ecstatic last week when the trades were finalized for outfielder Mookie Betts and left-hander David Price from the Boston Red Sox, and enthusiastic when the team also acquired right-handed pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol and former Dodger farmhand outfielder Luke Raley from the Minnesota Twins. But with right-hander Kenta Maeda and outfielder Alex Verdugo the only Dodgers traded that were on the 40-man roster, two additional spots had to be opened for the new Dodgers. On February 10 the team gave the bad news to 28-year old outfielder Kyle Garlick, and 29-year old first baseman Tyler White – they had been designated for assignment.

Tyler White remains in DFA limbo, but on February 15 Kyle Garlick was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for left-handed relief pitcher Tyler Gilbert.

It seems ironic that the pitching-rich Dodgers would acquire a 26-year old pitcher who went unclaimed in the December 2019 rule 5 draft but Andrew Friedman and his baseball operations staff have a keen eye for under-the-radar prospects and Gilbert has a legitimate chance of being yet another outstanding Andrew Friedman Dodgers steal.

Born on December 22, 1993 in Santa Cruz, California, Gilbert was drafted in the sixth round of the 2015 MLB First-Year Player Draft by the Phillies and signed for $279,300. The 6’-3”/195-pound left-hander spent one season with the USC Trojans after transferring from Santa Barbara City College. Baseball America posted the following scouting report prior to the 2015 draft:

“He’s a loose-armed 6-foot-3, 195-pound left-hander who’s effectively wild with some deception in his delivery and an improved fastball when working in a relief role. He’s sat at 91 mph and reached 93 in shorter bursts out of the bullpen. He’s gotten swings and misses with a hard upper 70s breaking ball, usually described as a slurvy slider.”

Although Gilbert has not gained additional velocity with his fastball (not yet, at least), in 2018 he added a cutter and a spiked curveball to his pitching arsenal in addition to his already excellent split-fingered change-up. The new pitches proved to be very effective against both lefties and righties. Prior to the new pitches, Gilbert had a batting average against (BAA) around .270. In 2018, lefties batted only .169 against him and righties only .234, for an excellent overall combined BAA of .211; a 60 point decrease.

In Gilbert’s own words:

“With the cutter, I could really play it off my fastball…to righties, I could start it up the middle and it would come in. I had a lot of broken bats against righties, which wasn’t something I had ever been able to do before. It was really exciting to see the cutter work and produce weak contact.”

He no longer has a “slurvy-curve and his spiked curveball is thrown much harder (around 80 mph), with a sharp 12-to-6 break.

Gilbert pitched for the Tigris del Licey of the Dominican Winter League in 2018-2019, posting a 0-0 record and 3.68 ERA in his combined 7.1 innings pitched. He was signed by the Phillies in 2019, posting a 2-4 record and very good 2.83 ERA in 47.2 innings pitched for the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs of the highly-competitive International League. It is here that he undoubtedly caught the attention of the Dodgers player development staff and eventually that of Andrew Friedman.

Although there is already a lot to like about Tyler Gilbert, there is even more reason to be optimistic that the Dodgers coaching staff will help the extremely coachable and hardworking left-hander to achieve even greater success.

Welcome, Tyler. Looking forward to seeing you in Dodger Blue!

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