Perhaps no team in all of baseball values depth more than the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s particularly true on their pitching staff, as they used 26 different pitchers last season.
The depth on the pitching side took a bit of a hit this winter as they traded Brandon McCarthy and Scott Kazmir to the Atlanta Braves, and then watched Yu Darvish sign with the Chicago Cubs.
The Dodgers replaced them with a couple of Major League players as they signed Tom Koehler and traded for Scott Alexander, but a bulk of the front office’s work this offseason has come in the form of Minor League signings.
It appears another has been added to that group, as former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Justin DeFratus announced on Instagram that he signed with the Dodgers, which can be presumed to be a Minor League contract:
DeFratus was an 11th-round draft pick of the Phillies in 2007 out of Ventura College. In parts of five Big League seasons with the Phillies from 2011-2015, the right-hander yielded a 4.08 ERA, 3.83 FIP and 1.38 WHIP while striking out 170 batters and walking 77 in 194 innings.
In 2017, DeFratus pitched in 17 games (16 starts) with Double-A Arkansas of the Seattle Mariners organization, going 5-7 with a 4.85 ERA and 1.34 WHIP in 98.1 innings.
He then pitched four games for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in an independent league and faired a lot better, posting a 2.81 ERA.
