The Los Angeles Dodgers have more than addressed their pitching woes from the 2024 season.
Constant injuries hampered the roster, but this offseason seems to have checked off the box for pitching depth heading into their title defense year.
With all the pitching talent on the team, there will still only be a five-man rotation for the Dodgers this season.
The obvious locks in the rotation are Opening Day starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell, international phenom Roki Sasaki, and All-Star Tyler Glasnow, but then things start to get a little murkier.
The two main guys who are seen as the front runners for this final spot are Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. Both have immense talent and both have more than enough reasons to secure that rotational nod.
May has been in the purgatory of injury recoveries and has not touched a major league mound since mid-May of 2023.
Already the recipient of a Tommy John surgery in 2021, May had flexor tendon surgery but was planning to return by July during the 2023 season. He was ramping up until an errant piece of lettuce at a dinner with his wife sidelined him indefinitely.
May had to have emergency surgery that night as doctors discovered he tore his esophagus. He was hospitalized for 11 days before being released and now had to go through another recovery process.
Since then, he has developed a new grip for his slider and is ramping up to get back to where he was at the major league level.
Gonsolin, on the other hand, was predicted to win the fifth rotational spot by MLB.com insider Sonja Chen.
Gonsolin has been out of commission since August 2023. The right-hander has been recovering from a Tommy John surgery.
Gonsolin is trying to get back to his illustrious 2022 All-Star showing where he went 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA and a 3.40 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 130.1 innings.
