The Los Angeles Dodgers traded Josh Sborz to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Minor League pitcher Jhan Zambrano. Sborz had been designated for assignment last week as the corresponding move to making the Trevor Bauer signing official.
The Dodgers face a similar dilemma for Justin Turner, as their 40-man roster remains full. Had Sborz cleared waivers, the Dodgers could have sent him outright to the Minors.
Sborz was drafted by the Dodgers out of the University of Virginia in the second round in 2015. He recently was named to the Virginia Baseball 2021 Hall of Fame Class.
The right-hander made his MLB debut in 2019 and went on to appear in seven games. He struggled some and finished with an 8.00 ERA, 5.88 FIP, 1.56 WHIP and had seven strikeouts over nine innings pitched.
Though, Sborz’s inflated ERA was largely due to allowing three runs in each of his first two games — one month apart. He otherwise had four scoreless appearances in his final five games in 2019.
Although in fewer opportunities, Sborz had better success last season. He finished with a 2.08 ERA, 5.96 FIP and 0.69 WHIP in four games. However, Sborz only recorded two strikeouts in 4.1 innings pitched.
Sborz benefitted from pitching from a new arm angle. “During quarantine, I lowered my arm slot because I sort of lacked command,” he explained last year.
“When I missed, it was a big miss. It was a 45-foot spiked fastball. Just lowering the arm slot kind of made my command go up. Also, another benefit was my elbow and shoulder pain has been real limited this year, which has been great. Being healthy so that every day I can get better and keep attacking.”
The change not only led to improved results on the mound, but Sborz no longer was experiencing elbow and shoulder trouble. Sborz credited Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness for helping him make the change.
“He just put that out there one time, because I had been playing catch with (Dennis) Santana and obviously he’s a little lower arm slot than I am. So I tried to emulate him a little bit, and the feeling with how it came out of my hand was just different,” Sborz said.
“I wanted to going at it and then threw a live, had really good results, the command was there, and that’s something I’ve sort lacked over the past couple of years. I figured keep rolling with it and when I took it into Spring Training 2.0, the results kept coming. I was like, might as well stick with it.”
Zambrano, 19, threw 60 innings in the Dominican Summer League in 2019, going 5-2 with a 2.55 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 12 games (11 starts). The Rangers signed Zambrano in July 2018.
Non-roster invites to Dodgers Spring Training
The Dodgers announced their group of non-roster invites to Spring Training, which consists of 31 players and includes a blend of top prospects and veterans.
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