The Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t done making moves yet. While their two previous trades this week were about working to make the lineup/roster stronger, Friday they aimed to make the pitching staff better.
At first glance, the acquisition of Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly seems like perhaps a marginal upgrade.
A right handed starter, Lynn has the worst ERA among qualified starters, a lovely 6.47.
One thing Lynn does possess is the ability to go late into games, something that pitchers in the current Dodgers rotation seem to lack. Also, Eno Sarris had this to say about Lynn in The Athletic recently –
For his part, old friend Joe Kelly is having a career high strikeout rate and strikeout to walk ratio. His ERA sits at 4.97, but his xERA is 3.23. Something with which pitching coach Mark Prior definitely could help.
The return for these two pitchers includes Trayce Thompson, who has been on the IL most of the season, and two arms from Double-A.
Nick Nastrini is a right handed starter that is expected to be one to watch in a year or two. Jordan Leasure is a right handed reliever also climbing the ranks. While neither one is one of the elite Dodger prospects, they are still tough to see go. Both Lynn and Kelly have options for next season, and if both produce in the playoffs, it will be well worth it.
Lynn, Kelly, and Amed Rosario were added to the Dodgers 40-man roster Friday afternoon. In the corresponding moves, both Eddys Leonard and Justin Bruhil were designated for assignment.
There is a feeling that perhaps the Dodgers front office still isn’t done. There seems to be some smoke around talks between L.A. and the St Louis Cardinals about one Nolan Arenado.
The return for Arenado would be a big one, and would most likely take a starter off the current roster. Names thrown around have been Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, and a young starter such as Bobby Miller or Gavin Stone. Hard to see where President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman includes players like that, but as we keep saying, stay tuned.
Think Blue Planning Committee 
I don’t see any way that Miller is traded this week. He’s the one pitcher I would think is pretty much untouchable, at least for the trade possibilities that have been mentioned so far.
I could see them letting Stone or Sheehan go in an Arenado trade. Not exactly sure what the Cards would want with CT3. They already have a ton of infielders and outfielders, but they aren’t done trading yet either, so who knows.
I’d hate to see Max go (and I know that may put me in the minority), but I still think he’ll have a lot to contribute between now and October. Of course, if we get Arenado, that would only leave 2B or DH for him and we have a full time DH.
I’ve decided I’m not going to get overly happy or overly sad until Tuesday afternoon, when I can analyze all of AF’s moves together.
I’ll be interested to see if Lynn can put things back together when he gets here. I think having something to play for and being able to work with Prior will both be of benefit to him. At least we should get some innings from him and that will, in the long run, help the bullpen, so I’m OK with him coming.
Kelly makes me crazy. Between his inconsistent pitching and his constant injuries, I would have much rather had Graveman. On the other hand, at his best, Kelly is really fun to watch and extremely effective.
All in all, I’m OK with this deal, although I reserve the right to change my mind later.
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Since Arenado is signed thru 2027, I would absolutely trade Muncy, Stone and another prospect for him. And I’d add Grove and CT3 if Flahrety was added.
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I could be very wrong, but I’m guessing that other prospect would have to be someone like Busch or Rushing for them to take that deal.
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If Busch, I’d still do it. I still like Vargas and think he will be better than Busch and he3-4 years younger. With Arenado and Freeman, there would be no place for Busch except DH.
I’d like to see Rushing as the LH backup to Smith by 2025.
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I’m not impressed with this deal. Both pitchers have high K rates but in between Ks they are just bad, especially Lynn. Kelly may help but don’t expect lights out production. IMO.
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Lynn is a reclamation project. We need better. Trading Muncy or Taylor with a young pitcher or two for Arenado would be great as long as it’s not Miller.
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The Dodgers are clearly telling us what their plans are. This season is a reset year where they always planned to play a lot of our young prospects and whatever happens happens. The goal being that they will come after Ohtani with all guns blazing in the off-season. They would love to get Arrenado but in order to make it work financially they would need to take back Muncy and most likely CT3 too as well as a young pitcher or two that are close to MLB ready. Bobby Miller is now untouchable and I believe that would be the guy St. Louis would demand in any deal so I doubt it happens. If they would take Muncy, Taylor, Emmet Sheehan and Michael Grove I would gladly do that deal. Or if they wanted a deal centered around Cartaya with Muncy and Sheehan I would take that deal. They need a solid young catcher badly so I think if we put Cartaya up they would be interested even though he’s having a down year. Maybe add another young arm like Gavin Stone if that take CT3 as well so we can absorb Arnenado’s contract easier and still be able to go for Ohtani. So far though I like the deals they have done. Bringing a beloved Dodger home like Kike who can play anywhere and can hit lefty pitching is a no brainer to me. Would have liked to have made it a larger trade and tried to get Turner back too but that’s just the fan in me. I like the Rosario move because he gives the team another utility player and he is immediately the fastest player on the team so for extra inning games you bring him in to run from 2B so anything out of the infield scores a run. Kelly and Lynn both have swing and miss stuff that our analytics team will tinker with their pitch selection like they have so many others. Small moves this year to make a HUGE move next year. Oh and we are still in
1st even in a “reset” year so there’s that.
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Well I don’t know. For Arendado, ct3 and Muncy are only salary moves. Ct3 and Muncy will now be redundant. No value there for cardinals. So what would st Louis really want? So far we got , ARENADO FOR NOTHING. So now what would you suggest? Cartya has obviously hit his ceiling. So Sheehan and grove for Arenado? Gee do you think cardinals are that dumb? Sheehan,Grove and Miller? They are still not that dumb. So what does that leave? Sometimes you have to remove your dodger cap and put on a thinking cap.
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Cards GM officially announced tonight that they aren’t trading Arenado.
Max celebrates by hitting two homers.
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Ah then I’m 100% right? 50% right? 0% right? Guess cardinals aren’t so dumb. Just as I suspected.
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Considering the fact that it took the Cards until 3 days before the deadline to announce they weren’t trading him, I’m guessing that the Dodgers wouldn’t give them who they asked for. I’m pretty sure Miller was part of the ask, and Andrew said no.
They probably went back and forth for a week, each one hoping the other would cave, but they both maintained their positions and so the Cardinals loudly announce that they don’t want to trade Arenado, as if they never intended to in the first place. If that had been the case, they would have said so early on, but they were rather vague up until today.
And there you have the inside story, told by someone who has no clue and is just guessing.
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And they probably didn’t want the two mendoza line hitters. And you know they wanted a way more than Miller for Arenada, probably major league ready, controllable pitchers, which we may not have, in their opinion. We don’t even know if they were even having serous talks with LA
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I’ve told Andrew to pull Max out of the deal and substitute Barnes. After all it’s far more rare to have a guy hitting under .100 and getting semi-regular playing time than it is under .200.
We need to keep Max around because he’s our emergency catcher.
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I guess we don’t have a catcher in the system to replace a catcher hitting under the barnes line. We are just waiting for another catcher to be dfa’d.
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