With Clayton Kershaw and Hyun-Jin Ryu on the shelf for the foreseeable future, and Alex Wood estimated to miss the next eight weeks, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ need for a starting pitcher has grown exponentially over the past week.
Prior to Kershaw being lost to injury, Los Angeles reportedly had Atlanta’s Julio Teheran and Oakland’s Sonny Gray among their top trade targets. At that time the Dodgers were still awaiting the returns of Brandon McCarthy and Ryu.
The club has since been said to inquire on Arizona’s Shelby Miller and Tampa Bay Rays starting pitchers, with Chris Archer the most prominent name to continue surfacing.
According to ESPN’s Jim Bowden, the Dodgers are aggressively pursuing trades for frontline starting pitchers as the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline now just 10 days away:
Dodgers have been extremely aggressive pursuing the games best starting pitchers…. available or not…willing to offer huge prospect packages…they appear committed to having a much different approach to this deadline than they did last year when their moves brought in the likes of Mat Latos, Alex Wood, Bronson Arroyo and Jim Johnson among others. This year they’re chasing the Archers, Sales, Quintana’s and every other top pitcher.
This corroborates a previous report suggesting Los Angeles is focused on a significant trade as opposed to an incremental upgrade. While the likes of Archer, Gray and Teheran may not be the same caliber of aces who were traded last season, they’re under team control for multiple seasons.
So too is Chicago White Sox left-hander Chris Sale, who now is believed to be available if the the haul is sweet enough. Sale undoubtedly becomes the best starting pitcher available this season.
The aforementioned pitchers being more than half-year rentals presumably is factoring into Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman’s reported willingness to part with some of the organization’s top prospects.
