LOS ANGELES — Tyler Glasnow already saw the Dodgers as his “dream team” with the prospect of coming back to play in his native Southern California for the team he grew up following as “the best possible scenario.”
Then he got a video message from Shohei Ohtani.
“I think when I heard about the Dodgers (possibly trading for him), I called a lot of people who played in the organization and asked a lot of questions. I’ve only heard positive things,” said Glasnow, a Newhall native and Santa Clarita Hart High alumnus. “Then Shohei sent me the video and it was awesome.
“He just said he wants me to come on the team and he hopes to hit some home runs for me and join me on the pitching staff the following year. It was an awesome video. … Just what he’s able to do on a baseball field is nothing short of insanity. It was cool and definitely added a lot of points for me to go to the Dodgers. So I think his recruitment worked.”
Ohtani, who agreed to his own record-breaking $700 million, 10-year contract earlier this month, won’t be a two-way player next season after undergoing elbow surgery. Instead, he’ll be the Dodgers’ designated hitter.
“I just want to pick his brain and know what he’s learned,” Glasnow said. “He just seems like such a cool dude and probably one of the best baseball players to ever live. I want to be on a field with that guy.”
The trade between the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays was contingent on Glasnow agreeing to a contract extension with the Dodgers. They worked out a new contract that will pay Glasnow $25 million in 2024, $30 million each of the next three seasons and potentially another $30 million in 2028 (it’s a team option with a player option for $21.5 million if the Dodgers don’t exercise it).
The deal done, the Dodgers sent right-hander Ryan Pepiot and outfielder Jonny DeLuca to Tampa for Glasnow and outfielder Manuel Margot.
Sacrificing the chance to cash in even more as a free agent next winter was an easy choice for Glasnow when it came with the opportunity to play for the Dodgers.
“I guess it’s never been about making as much as I possibly can. It’s been a lot more about being somewhere I want to be and the life, I guess, I could live,” he said. “I’m super happy with the money and it’s somewhere I’m super happy to be. So I guess I was never super interested in getting as much as I possibly could. It worked out really well for me.”
It will only work out really well for the Dodgers if Glasnow can break from his past and stay healthy.
The 30-year-old right-hander has elite stuff but has thrown more than 88 innings in a season just twice in eight years with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay, topping out with career-highs of 21 starts and 120 innings last year. That total was capped by the Rays as Glasnow returned from Tommy John surgery in August 2021. Glasnow missed a couple of months because of an oblique injury last season but finished 10-7 with a 3.53 ERA.
Glasnow is confident he left his injury history on the operating table that day.
“I mean, given the amount of innings and the amount of injuries the previous years, I think, to say that is probably fair,” Glasnow said of being criticized for not being able to stay healthy. “I think that, for me, the majority of the innings that I’ve missed had been related to the same (elbow) injury.
“The first time it happened was 2019. That was the first time I injured the UCL and it was just the same injury (in 2020 and 2021). … Finally, I got it fixed and ever since Tommy, John, that’s felt amazing.”
Glasnow said the surgery was “definitely a positive” for him.
“I got that hybrid surgery. It’s kind of the new evolution of Tommy John with that synthetic collagen band thing,” he said. “So, in my brain, I have double the strength. It’s one of those things where I got so used to having the issue in ’19, there was a moment where I just kind of assumed this was something I was going to have to deal with my whole career. Then when I did go under and had the surgery and it healed and got to where it needed to be I was like – it’s just a night-and-day difference.”
Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said the team “dove in” and analyzed Glasnow’s performance following Tommy John surgery. They came away feeling the surgery had “handled” his previous problems and he was worth the risk of the largest contract the team has given a pitcher (two-way stars aside) since Andrew Friedman took over the organization.
“I think a lot of it is more about betting on how he’s feeling, how good of an athlete he is and our performance and medical group feeling like he’s in a good position to kind of take off,” Gomes said. “We’ve seen this type of stuff with pitchers in the past where, you know, they get to a point and they start to understand their bodies. For whatever reason, things leading up to it, you have hiccups in the ability to take down 160-plus innings, and then out of nowhere they take off.
“From all of our conversations and betting on Tyler the person and competitor, we felt very good about it.”
The Dodgers also leaned on Ohtani to help make their pitch to free agent right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Gomes acknowledged the search for starting pitching has not ended with the acquisition of Glasnow.
“Obviously, it was a one-for-one swap (with Pepiot going to Tampa). So we’re still looking to add talent and continuing to examine all avenues on the starting pitching front.”
Bill Plunkett www.ocregister.com Los Angeles Dodgers,MLB,Sports,Top Stories Breeze,top stories ivdb,Top Stories LADN,Top Stories LBPT,Top Stories OCR,Top Stories PE,top stories rdf,Top Stories SGVT,top stories sun,Top Stories WDN
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2023-12-18 20:40:25 , Dodgers baseball news: The Orange County Register