by Cary Osborne
When Dodger president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman spoke to the media on Oct. 27, four days after the Dodgers’ season ended in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, one of his discussion points was starting pitching.
In that, he mentioned the names of five Dodger starting pitching prospects.
“We’ve got a really good group of young starting pitchers coming with Mitch White, Andre Jackson we saw some of this year, Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, Landon Knack who will all be upper levels or Major Leagues when we start the year, really gives us a really strong foundation of depth.”
Two of those pitchers — White and Jackson — have a little big-league experience under their belts (White with 49 2/3 innings and Jackson with 11 2/3 innings) already. But what will 2022 hold for the group of five, and how close are any of them to impacting the big-league club?
The answer for a few is soon. For the others, that’s a more difficult question.
Since 2016, the Dodgers’ top-tier pitching prospects who have made their Major League debuts have generally accumulated more than 200 minor league innings and have at least one season of at least 100 innings pitched.
But that’s not a hard-and-fast rule for pitchers to make the jump to the big leagues.
There are two exceptions — and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise who they are.
Walker Buehler was drafted out of college in 2015, had Tommy John surgery two months later and pitched five innings in his pro debut in 2016. The next season he was up in the big leagues after 88 2/3 innings total minor league innings.
Julio Urías, who made his pro debut at 16 years old, did climb over 200 pro innings but didn’t have a 100-inning season before his Major League debut in 2017.
Urías amassed 263 1/3 pro innings, but his most minor league innings in one season were 87 2/3.
Typically, though, starting pitchers have had to show they are ready by completing the 200/100 double.
College draftees:
· Andre Jackson (2021 MLB debut) — 254 minor league innings before call-up (114 2/3 IP minor league single-season high)
· Josiah Gray (2021 MLB debut) — 198 IP (130)
· Mitch White (2020 MLB debut) — 293 2/3 IP (105 1/3)
· Tony Gonsolin (2019 MLB debut) — 255 IP (128)
· Ross Stripling (2016 MLB debut) — 199 IP (127 2/3)
· Brock Stewart (2016 MLB debut) — 221 1/3 IP (101)
· Jose De Leon (2016 MLB debut) — 330 IP (114 1/3)
High school or international free agent:
· Dustin May (2019 MLB debut) — 403 2/3 IP (134)
· Caleb Ferguson (2018 MLB debut) — 250 1/3 IP (122 1/3)
· Dennis Santana (2018 MLB debut) — 361 1/3 IP (118 1/3)
Pepiot has the most experience of the three players Friedman mentioned who have yet to debut:
· Ryan Pepiot — 124 2/3 IP career minor league innings (101 1/3 single-season high)
· Landon Knack — 62 1/3 IP (62 1/3)
· Bobby Miller — 56 1/3 IP (56 1/3)
As of today, all three players are not on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster. They were each non-roster invitees to Dodgers 2021 Spring Training.
Pepiot, 24, was the Dodgers’ third-round pick out of Butler University in the 2019 MLB Draft. After tossing seven no-hit innings on July 4 for Double-A Tulsa, Dodger manager Dave Roberts acknowledged the next day that Pepiot was on the big-league club’s radar.
The 24-year-old right-hander was promoted to Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he maintained high strikeout numbers (9.9 SO/9) but allowed 2.6 HR/9 and 4.5 BB/9 in 41 2/3 innings. In Tulsa, those numbers were 11.3 SO/9, 1.1 HR/9 and 3.9 BB/9.
Knack was chosen in the second round of the 2020 MLB Draft and finished the regular season in Double-A Tulsa.
The right-hander amassed 62 1/3 innings between Tulsa and High-A Great Lakes, where he produced a few striking numbers on the run-prevention side: 10.3 SO/BB, 1.2 BB/9 and 11.8 SO/9.
In his senior year at East Tennessee State in 2020, he allowed one walk to 51 strikeouts in 25 innings.
Miller, a 22-year-old right-hander and the Dodgers’ 2020 first-rounder out of Louisville University, reached Tulsa and pitched 9 1/3 innings there after spending most of the season in High-A Great Lakes, where he was impressive across the board: 10.7 SO/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.2 HR/9, 1.91 ERA.
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