Twelve years ago, the Dodgers found the perfect test case for applying their most cutting-edge knowledge of pitching development to mold a future anchor of their starting rotation.
Julio Urías was only 16 when he signed with the Dodgers in 2012. He made his debut at Class-A the following season. While pitching to much older hitters, Urias passed nearly every performance-related test as he ascended the minor league ladder.
Along the way, the Dodgers were careful to mitigate Urías' workload. In his third professional start, he was pulled after throwing five shutout innings on 56 pitches.
By 2016, Urias — still just 19 — was in the Dodgers' major league rotation. A year later, his shoulder broke.
Despite controlling Urías' workload from an age when most pitchers are still in high school, the Dodgers still could not prevent their top prospect from undergoing major surgery within five years of his professional debut.
Flash forward to 2025. The pitching injury epidemic has only worsened. The cautionary tale of Urías' shoulder injury hardly seemed to provide caution — or, at least, offer actionable guidance for teams attempting to optimize the workload of their top pitchers in the minor leagues.
The Dodgers have done more than taken note of the injury epidemic. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes have spoken openly about taking steps to actively modify how they optimize pitchers' workloads for performance and health.
The results of those steps might need years to bear fruit. As of now, the Dodgers have an entire pitching staff replete with All-Star starters, closers, middle relievers, and promising youngsters on their injured list.
Gomes, speaking this week to the New York Post, has an idea what the solution might involve.
"I think a little bit of it is, we should be pushing (our minor league pitchers) and challenging them more, and not less," he said. "I think we've been very conservative."
On the same day the Arizona Diamondbacks announced that Corbin Burnes, the 2023 National League Cy Young Award winner, needed season-ending Tommy John surgery, the Dodgers had 15 pitchers on their injured list.
"It's obviously an 'us' problem, but it's also across the industry, unfortunately," Gomes told the Post.
Gomes acknowledged that he and Friedman are "far from having the answer" to keeping pitchers healthy from the minors to the majors. If nothing else, they're committed to avoiding the definition of insanity: doing the same thing twice and expecting different results.
