The Los Angeles Dodgers landed Roki Sasaki to further bolster the rotation, which could lead to a trade of a starting pitcher.
The Japanese phenom will be part of a six-man rotation the Dodgers plan to deploy in 2025. However, Los Angeles has eight starters for those six spots in Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasgow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Sasaki, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May, and the team will likely re-sign Clayton Kershaw to be the eighth starter.
With the Dodgers having plenty of starters, CBS analyst Mike Axisa expects Los Angeles to trade Gonsolin who’s set to earn $5.4 million in 2025, while being arb-eligible in 2026 before being a free agent in 2027.
“A lot of injuries there, but also a lot of high-quality pitchers, and I didn’t even list Kershaw,” Axisa wrote. “The Dodgers have a recent track record of trading role players when they begin to get expensive through arbitration (Gavin Lux, Yasiel Puig, Ross Stripling, Alex Wood, etc.) and it stands to reason they could do that again with a surplus starting pitcher.
“Gonsolin (two years of control) and May (one year of control) are the obvious candidates for such a trade, though both missed last season with injuries, which will take a bite out of their trade value,” Axisa added. “That said, starting pitching is always in demand, and there would be no shortage of interest in Gonsolin and/or May. Sasaki gives the Dodgers the option to trade one, if they want to go that route.”
Gonsolin was an All-Star in 2022 but the right-hander missed all of 2024 due to an injury. The right-hander is a solid fourth or fifth starter and is a logical trade candidate as Axisa writes.
Gonsolin is 30 years old and in his MLB career is 34-11 with a 3.19 ERA in 79 games including 71 starts over 375.2 innings. He was selected in the ninth round of the 2016 MLB draft by the Dodgers.
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