Dodgers showing interest in Jeremy Jeffress

[konu]

According to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the Dodgers are one of many teams to show interest in reliever Jeremy Jeffress. Over the last week or two, the Dodgers have been linked to Brad Hand, Kirby Yates, and now Jeffress. The Dodgers main focus this offseason has been the pen, they’ve traded for Knebel, signed Kahnle who won’t likely pitch till 2022 unfortunately, Blake Treinen, signed Brandon Morrow, and Jimmy Nelson to minor league deals while also trading for Garrett Cleavinger and clearly they aren’t done yet.

Jeffress is 33 years old, and last year he had an Era of 1.54 in 23 innings of work. However, he only struck out 17 in those 23 innings while also walking 13 which is incredibly high. To his credit, he was able to limit the damage but was also extremely lucky. Not hard to imagine those walks coming back to bite him in the ass. He had a bad year in 2019 had an Era over 5 while his strikeout rate took a big decline, but he had a dominant year in 2018 where he had had an Era of 1.27 he struck out over 10 batters per 9 and kept his walks down.

He’s a Sinker, Splitter, Curve, and 4 seam pitcher. The Dodgers could change his pitch mix to something they feel would be more beneficial for him and thus the team. His 4 seam is between 94-96 and gets pretty good rise on it, his best pitch is his splitter which is thrown extremely hard with natural sinking action which results in a lot of ground balls. His curveball is probably his 2nd best pitch it has some bite to it at the end and it results in a lot of swings and misses.

There’s something there for the Dodgers to work with, despite his brutal 2019 season he’s been able to limit damage pretty well. He likely won’t get a huge contract either because he’s not of the caliber of Brad Hand or Kirby Yates. But would he really be worth it? At this point, I’m not sure. There are better options pay a little extra to get the better pitcher and the late innings can be handled by Treinen, Knebel, Hand/Yates, and Jansen. Unless the Dodgers feel comfortable with Jansen and Knebel then adding Jeffress for the middle relief role could work. What are your guys’ thoughts?