With 23-year-old Roki Sasaki added to the Dodgers pitching staff, the team can now focus on tweaking the roster for their pursuit of the 2025 World Championship.

Reportedly, there has been a subtle but very important change in the Dodgers player acquisition strategy. Andrew Friedman, the team’s President of Baseball Operations, was recently quoted that their goal is to complete the 2025 roster before the start of the regular season, avoiding the acquisition of players at the trade deadline.

With the increased number of MLB teams qualifying for postseason play (12), the end of July trade deadline has become much more problematic and expensive for buyers. At the 2024 trade deadline, there were 18 teams still in contention for the playoffs — legitimate buyers that were driving up the price for rental talent from the 12 teams that might be sellers. Apparently, the Dodgers are no longer interested in trading their top prospects in order to acquire needed pieces at the deadline.

What roster changes to expect?

There will be changes to the Dodgers current roster of pitchers. Kyle Hurt (TJ surgery), River Ryan (TJ surgery), and Gavin Stone (shoulder surgery) will not pitch competitively in 2025 and will be placed on the 60-day IL when Dodgers pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training on February 11. Three others are not expected to be available until mid-season — if then: Brusdar Graterol (shoulder surgery), Clayton Kershaw (shoulder and toe surgery) and Emmett Sheehan (UCL brace procedure).

The Dodgers baseball operations staff are master manipulators of player options and short-term IL. Bouncing players (particularly pitchers) to and from their Triple-A team at Oklahoma City has become standard operating procedure for the team to keep pitching arms fresh. But, the 2025 roster includes nine pitchers without minor league options: Anthony Banda, Ryan Braiser, Tyler Glasnow, Michael Kopech, Dustin May, Evan Phillips, Blake Snell, Blake Treinen, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Reportedly, the Dodgers will use six starting pitchers leaving seven spots in the bullpen. With Banda, Braiser, Kopech, May, and Phillips out of options, that only leaves two spots for relievers who can be shuttled to and from OKC. The short-term IL is still available, but the Dodgers may be under the MLB microscope if/when too many pitchers make too many trips to the IL. Look for the Dodgers to make a deal or two that will provide more flexibility for pitchers with minor league options (Ben Casparius, Nick Frasso, Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, et al).

Position players are less of an issue, but James Outman will be fighting for a roster spot in Spring Training — if he is still with the team. Chris Taylor’s offensive struggles over the last two seasons should put his roster spot in question, but his large contract makes him untradeable. Would the Dodgers release him in order to bring back Kiké Hernández? Or, could they find a team that would take him if the Dodgers included a high profile prospect like Bobby Miller in a trade?

The next few weeks will be interesting to see what the Dodgers 40-man roster will look like when the team assemble for Spring Training at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona.

Play Ball!

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