The Dodgers have a fairly sizeable hole to fill in their rotation for 2010 after the decision of free-agent lefty Randy Wolf to sign for the Milwaukee Brewers on a deal believed to be worth nearly $30m over three years.
While Baseball betting suggests the price Milwaukee paid for Wolf seems a little on the steep side, it is hard to argue with the role he played for the Dodgers in the second half of last season, winning six of his last seven starts on the way to the playoffs.
Although he only ended up with an 11-7 record, Wolf’s 3.23 ERA and .227 batting average allowed were among the National League leaders and his 24 quality starts tied with Cliff Lee for the MLB lead – a big saving on the bullpen at least one day out of five.
Sadly for the Dodgers, Wolf being a Type A free agent means they will get nothing in return so will have to find a replacement for his place in the rotation either from within or via free agency, something they have yet to seriously dabble in this postseason.
At the moment, unless James McDonald finally begins to bloom as a starter, there are only three sure things in the rotation in Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda and Clayton Kershaw.
But there are still names out there that would make sense for a low rotation position, most likely one of Joe Torre’s former Yankees workhorses in Chien-Ming Wang, who is coming back from shoulder surgery.
Wang, a renowned ground-ball pitcher, may not be the ideal fit for Dodger Stadium in terms of makeup, but they do have a record for rehabbing starters to success – he should be 100% fit for starting action by May.
Other, fairly uninspiring, candidates would include Tim Redding and Josh Towers, who was signed to a minor league deal last week by the club, but MLB Predictions suggests that Towers seems more likely to fill a long relief role or, as in 2009 with the Yankees, become Triple-A fodder.
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