I know this is a late follow up blog on news that took place a week or two ago, but better late than never to write one.
Dodgers announced on January 5th, that they reached an agreement with free agent reliever and Dodgers World Series Champion Blake Treinen on a 2 year $17.5 million deal with a team option for a third year.
Since the beginning of the off-season, I’ve said that the Dodgers’ main priority should be the bullpen. Although, there were and are big name players on the market, Dodgers should focus on turning one of our biggest, most consistent weakness into a strength. More importantly, they should bring back Treinen, due to the consistent decline in production of closer Kenley Jansen.
With Jansen continuously declining, especially this past October in the playoffs, I strongly believe Dodgers don’t win the World Series if guys like Treinen, May, Graterol, Urias and Gonzalez don’t step up and perform like they did. Treinen played a key role in our title run, so I’m glad he’s back in Dodger Blue. This move continues a trend that Andrew Friedman has done this off-season, turning the bullpen a strength. We’ve traded for reliever Cory Knebel, signed Brandon Morrow to a minor league deal, brought back Treinen and it doesn’t look like Andrew Friedman is done.
Dodgers writer for LA Times, Jorge Castillo tweeted that the Dodgers have been in contact with multiple relief pitchers. One, as seen above, former Padres closer Kirby Yates, and former Cleveland Indians excuse me Cleveland Baseball Team closer Brad Hand. Unfortunately, I was strongly hoping top free agent reliever Liam Hendriks would sign with Dodgers, but that did not happen.
Great deal for Liam, go get that bread. Dodgers, reportedly didn’t want to go 4 years with a reliever, and Hendriks pretty much got that with his deal seen above. So, as Hendriks falls off the board, I’m contempt with getting Brad Hand and/or Kirby Yates. Both are proven closers with shut down stuff. Like I said before, Friedman should continue strengthening the bullpen. If we were only able to pick one, I would choose Brad Hand, simply because he’s left handed. We so far only have two lefties in the bullpen, Adam Kolarek and Victor Gonzalez. So I wouldn’t mind picking up one more lefty. You can’t go wrong with either pick, but another name I would like to throw into the mix is former Rays reliever Chaz Roe for the simple fact that he throws an unhittable, frisbee slider.
