The Los Angeles Dodgers looked to have the most stacked starting rotation in Major League Baseball coming into the 2025 season. But once again, injuries are the great equalizer.
With Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow on the injured list, the Dodgers still easily have one of the league’s best rotations. But it’s not the juggernaut they hoped it would be, and they’re unsure how much to trust the injury returns of those two, plus Clayton Kershaw and Shohei Ohtani.
Because the Dodgers are the Dodgers, there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t push their chips to the center of the table and acquire yet another starting pitcher. They’ve already gone all-in on this season 100 times over, so why not keep pushing?
As to which pitcher they could acquire, meanwhile, one baseball writer has an early inclination.
On Monday, Athlon’s Jon Conahan proposed Zach Eflin, the Baltimore Orioles’ Opening Day starter, as a hypothetical trade fit for the Dodgers as the season progresses.
“The Dodgers should have a good enough farm system to make a trade for the 31-year-old veteran. The Orioles have an elite farm system, too, but it isn’t as strong as it once was,” Conahan wrote.
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“If the Orioles are looking for some decent prospects, even if they have to give up a high-profile name in the system, there isn’t much of a reason not to trade for a starter of his caliber given the situation that Dodgers are in as World Series contenders.”
Eflin, 31, is currently on the injured list with a lat strain, but it looks as though a return is imminent. He allowed six earned runs in 18 innings to begin his season, going 2-1, and had a 3.54 ERA in 343 innings between 2023 and 2024.
The three-year, $40 million deal Eflin originally signed with the Tampa Bay Rays pays him $18 million this year and expires at season’s end. If the Orioles fall out of the race, which looks early on like it’s a distinct possibility, they might be itching to get out of paying the remainder of that money.
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