At a time when there isn’t much good baseball news to report, there was some on Saturday, albeit not on the Major League level.

On Saturday evening, Dodgers Insider‘s Rowan Kavner posted this on Twitter:

In the linked article, Kavner notes (verbatim):

“Maddux Bruns, last year’s first-round selection, threw live batting practice on one field Thursday. On another, 2019 third-rounder Ryan Pepiot and 2020 top selections Bobby Miller and Landon Knack struck out most of the hitters they faced in an exhibition against an independent travel team. Coaches and executives looked on, evaluating the leading arms of a farm system lauded for its consistent ability to replenish talent and keep the Dodgers among baseball’s elite.

‘On the minor league side, it feels fairly normal,” said Will Rhymes, Dodgers director of player development.'”

Additionally, earlier in the day, MLB Trade Rumors‘ Darragh McDonald reported this (verbatim):

“Right-hander Yadier Alvarez is in camp with the Dodgers, tweets Bill Plunkett of The Orange County Register. Alvarez was once a highly-touted prospect, with the Dodgers giving him a $16MM signing bonus in 2015 and Baseball America ranking him as the 26th prospect across the league in 2017. Despite being selected to the team’s 40-man roster prior to the 2019 season, there were concerns with his lack of control. In 2018, he pitched 48 1/3 innings at Double-A with an excellent 30% strikeout rate but a ghastly 20% walk rate.

“In 2019, injuries limited him to just 3 2/3 Double-A innings and he was designated for assignment in March of 2020, eventually clearing waivers and being outrighted to the minors. Of course, the pandemic wiped out the minor leagues that year and Alvarez was only able to throw 3 2/3 Arizona Complex League innings in 2021. Despite all of those ups and downs, Alvarez is still relatively young, turning 26 on Tuesday. One silver lining of losing his roster spot two years ago is that he is not affected by the ongoing lockout, giving him a chance to show the Dodgers’ brass that he still has something to offer.

“Another hurler looking for a bounceback with the Dodgers is Carson Fulmer, whom the club selected from the Reds in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft in December. Originally selected 8th overall by the White Sox in the 2015 draft, Fulmer also cracked Baseball America’s Top 100, coming in at #70 in 2016. However, he has struggled to establish himself in the majors, putting up a walk rate above 10% in each of the past six seasons. After bouncing around the waiver wire multiple times in recent years, he eventually cleared waivers in May of 2021. Plunkett spoke to the 28-year-old, who credits his former Vanderbilt teammate Walker Buehler with his current opportunity. ‘I think that he had chirped at the front office a little bit and tried to get me over here,’ Fulmer joked. ‘He was excited (when the Dodgers acquired Fulmer). At the end of the day, he knows what I’m capable of. He just wanted me to be in the right place, the right situation.’ Much like Alvarez, the loss of his roster spot gives Fulmer the benefit of participating in Spring Training and the upcoming minor league season, despite the lockout.”

Dodgers fans who had an opportunity to see Alvarez when he was with the (then Advanced Single-A) Rancho Cucamonga Quakes back in 2017 know that his stuff is absolutely filthy. The (then) 21-year-old Matanzas, Cuba native went 2-4 with a 5.32 ERA in his 14 games (11 starts) with the Quakes, where he struck out 61 of the 262 batters he faced. The downside is that he also walked 55 of them – a problem that has plagued Alvarez throughout his (thus far) five minor league seasons with the Dodgers. Despite this, and as McDonald noted, the Dodgers added Alvarez to their 40-man roster prior to the 2019 season.

As McDonald also noted, things got so bad for Alvarez that the Dodgers designated him for assignment prior to the 2020 season. He (somehow) managed to clear waivers, which allowed the Dodgers to bring him back and reassign him to the Minors, thereby removing him from their 40-man roster. As such, he is not affected by the (seemingly endless) MLB lockout.

Although this is certainly some good news for Dodgers fans, it is not the news that they – and all baseball fans – are looking for, as the MLB lockout is about to enter its 14th week.

Play Ball!

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