When the Los Angeles Dodgers signed pitcher Kenta Maeda out of Japan before the 2016 season, there were incentives built into his contract based on number of starts and innings pitched because there were irregularities in his pitching elbow that showed up in a physical.
One thing the Dodgers found out in regards to Maeda in 2017 was that he could be a pretty dominant relief pitcher. He was moved to the bullpen for the team’s postseason run that ended with a loss in Game 7 of the World Series.
The only problem with Maeda being a reliever is that all of the incentives built into his contract as suited for a starting pitcher. Though, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recently said he’s not taking that into account when deciding how to best deploy the right-hander.
Maeda, being the team player that he is, said that his contract situation should not affect the team, although he does prefer to be a starter, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“The contractual issue is just for myself, and it exactly can’t dictate what the team needs to do and it shouldn’t be affecting other starting pitchers,” said Maeda, comfortable with such a move after his great success as a postseason reliever. “I’m looking at this as just getting some work before my next start because of the off-days. Definitely, I want to start as many times as I can.”
Maeda has only made one start so far this season due to the team having several off-days in April. There also happened to be a rainout in San Francisco the day he was supposed to start against the Giants.
Maeda was moved to the bullpen for the rest of that series against the Giants and did end up making one appearance. There are no current plans to move Maeda to the bullpen permanently, as he is scheduled to start Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But it could end up happening in the latter part of the season and into the postseason considering how dominant he was in that role last year.
