Major League Baseball

What we learned in MLB this week: Where does the Dodgers' rotation go from here?

Published Sep. 7, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Every Thursday, Jordan Shusterman examines one thing we've learned in each MLB division over the past week.

AL East: Yankees letting the kids play

Is it too late for the Yankees to make things interesting from a postseason perspective? Almost certainly. Does that make the first week of 20-year-old outfielder Jasson Domínguez and his fellow prospect peers in the Bronx any less fun? Certainly not.

Well, maybe not for fans of 29 other teams who are surely delighting amid arguably the most wayward Yankees season in decades. But the arrival of Domínguez and his impressive production — and engaging personality — has undeniably energized the Evil Empire's fan base regardless of how microscopic its playoff odds remain. The Yankees haven't just been a bad baseball team for much of the season, they've been a bad watch on all fronts. Injuries have certainly played a part, but outside of Gerrit Cole starts, Aaron Judge (when he's playing), and the occasional 900-foot Giancarlo Stanton blast, there haven't been a lot of reasons to tune into this team beyond the intriguing if inconsistent development of shortstop Anthony Volpe.

Finally, though, Domínguez — alongside Austin Wells, Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza — are forming a lineup around Judge that suddenly makes the Yankees one of the more compelling teams to observe for even neutral observers. Young players learning the highs and lows of the big leagues and delivering their first clutch hits or making their first diving catches is way more fun to watch than aging veterans going through the motions in a lost season. More importantly for Yankees fans, this group is helping to crystalize a vision for what the team could — and maybe should — look like next year when another mediocre record will be considered even less acceptable than it has been this season.

Not all of these young players will pan out in the long run, of course, but the increased short-term enjoyment of the team — and promise for a brighter future that might not actually be all that far away — has been a nice positive twist in an otherwise disaster campaign in the Bronx.

AL Central: Royals' Ragans is the truth

A year ago, a young left-handed starting pitcher named Cole Ragans was getting his first taste of the big leagues for a bad Rangers team headed for 94 losses. A first-round pick back in 2017 out of a Florida high school, Ragans endured not one but two Tommy John surgeries early in his pro career that kept him out of game action for all of 2018, 2019, and 2020. By the time he made his MLB debut for Texas last August, it was as much a story of perseverance as it was an arrival of a top prospect with sky-high expectations. On the mound, Ragans was fairly vanilla down the stretch for Texas. His four-seamer averaged 92.1 mph and maxed out at 94.8 mph, while his stellar changeup kept hitters off-balance enough to avoid any disaster outings. He posted a 4.95 ERA in 40 frames across nine starts. Ho-hum.

An offseason spent building up his velocity at Tread Athletics in North Carolina had Ragans one of the talks of Rangers spring training earlier this year, when he arrived in Arizona with some extra fuzz on his heater. There was one problem: The Rangers had spent the winter essentially buying a new rotation in free agency in the form of Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney, while retaining Martín Pérez. Velo bump for Ragans be damned — there was no room for the 25-year-old southpaw. It was go-time in Arlington, no time to wait and see if this young pitcher could find another gear in the big-league rotation. To the bullpen he went, and while the increased velocity sustained, the results were poor. He was soon demoted to Triple-A where he could return to developing as a starter.

When the first-place Rangers needed bullpen reinforcements in late June, Ragans was cashed in as trade bait and sent to Kansas City for Aroldis Chapman. Ragans initially seemed like a light return for what many viewed to be the most attractive relief rental on the market — not to mention a whole month before the deadline. For a dreadful Royals team, though, any young arm talent was a welcome sight to add to the organization.

Immediately, Ragans' marked velocity gains continued to impress and sustain in a starting role. And so much for maxing out at 95 mph — Ragans was throwing 100 in his first inning as a Royal, and it was no fluke. He's tickled triple digits on multiple occasions since, and not just in the early stages of outings. (It's worth noting Shane McClanahan is the only other lefty starter in baseball to throw 100 mph this season.)

Ragans' heater hasn't been just for show, either. Results have followed. While he's faced some notably weak opponents recently, he's also done exactly what a good pitcher should do against the A's, Pirates, and White Sox: carve. In his past three starts against the aforementioned trio, Ragans has allowed zero runs across 19 innings with 27 strikeouts to just one walk. His 1.51 ERA and 2.2 fWAR since his first Royals start on July 15 top all MLB starting pitchers over that span. Yeah, best. No. 1. The top.

Masterful. Spectacular. Dominant. Cole Flippin' Ragans. What a world.

My brain is telling me to tap the brakes a bit on the hype train considering the sample size, but I'll be honest: I'm pretty sold. The list of lefty starters I'd rather have than this guy for the next handful of years — even ignoring his added value as a pre-arbitration player — is quite short. Everyone now knows Kansas City has a foundational offensive player in Bobby Witt Jr., but this nifty trade might have just provided them a future ace on the mound.

AL West: Rangers' bullpen a disaster

As if watching Ragans evolve into prime Randy Johnson hasn't been painful enough for Texas, it's been a nightmare stretch for the Rangers of late. Swept at home on Wednesday by the rival Astros by a combined score of 39-10, Texas is now three games back of Houston and even a half-game out of the final wild-card spot.

How did it get this bad?

Well, that bullpen that they thought they patched up with the acquisitions of Chapman and later Chris Stratton has been a downright catastrophe on all fronts lately. With the offense regressing from being overwhelmingly great for the first four months to merely good in the second half, Texas hasn't been able to run up the score to the point where a shaky bullpen won't cost them. In turn, the Rangers' relief corps has consistently failed to hang onto leads big and small in recent weeks, and it's difficult to see how it's going to get any better with October approaching. After being scored upon in just one of his first 16 outings with Texas, Chapman has conceded runs in five of his past seven outings. Will Smith had a stretch in August where he allowed runs in six of eight outings. Stratton has mostly been steady, but the trio beyond him of Josh Sborz, Brock Burke and Jose LeClerc has ranged from unstable (at best) to highly flammable in some especially ugly cases.

Worse is the degree to which this bullpen has wasted what has generally been excellent starting pitching since the trade deadline (at least before this week's series against Houston). There's probably still enough star power on this team to keep making a real run at the AL West if not a comfortable playoff spot, but man, I don't know what the solution is to fix this fatal flaw in the roster. It's hard to see how this volatile bullpen won't cost them at some point in October — that is, if that unit can hold up enough for them to even get there.

NL East: Why Marlins can make the postseason

From a team that has suddenly plummeted into a precarious position into the standings to one that has surged into a playoff spot as one of baseball's hottest squads, it's time to check in on the Fightin' Fish. Skip Schumaker's club has had quite the roller-coaster year, with the most recent uneven development being the announcement that ace Sandy Alcántara and slugger Jorge Soler are headed to the injured list amid a six-game winning streak that's catapulted Miami to the third NL wild-card spot. The trade deadline acquisitions of Josh Bell and Jake Burger have proven to be two of the most impactful across the majors, lengthening a lineup that has sorely lacked consistent production from those not named Soler and Luis Arráez. The most exciting development over the last week, however, has been Jazz Chisholm Jr. finally starting to play like the star we all thought he could be.

Losing Alcántara and Soler at this stage of the season is a massive blow, and only further amplifies Miami's other big challenge: They have the toughest remaining schedule of any NL wild-card contender, including seven more against the Brewers, and three apiece against the Braves and Phillies. That's a stark contrast to the likes of the Reds (whose only three games remaining against a team above .500 are at home with the Twins) or the Giants (who play the Rockies seven times). Miami taking the first two in this week's series against the Dodgers suggests this team might be hot enough to keep winning against quality opponents, but the schedule is undeniably a factor to consider when projecting its chances at clinching a spot in October. I still really like the Marlins' chances, however, and they'd be a welcome addition to an NL postseason field that might otherwise look a lot like what we expected entering the year.

NL Central: Don't sleep on Cubs' Suzuki

If the Marlins aren't the hottest team in the NL postseason mix, it's the Cubs. Chicago just swept the Giants in front of a raucous Wrigley Field crowd that is clearly yearning to host a playoff game next month — and they're putting themselves in excellent position to do exactly that. Just when it looked like we were settling into a likely Cubs-Phillies matchup in Philadelphia, the Cubs have surged to 1.5 games back of Philly for the top wild-card spot and Milwaukee for the NL Central crown. The Chicago-Milwaukee series at American Family Field to close out the regular season could end up being the most exciting games of the final weekend.

While the arrival of Dansby Swanson, the resurgence of Cody Bellinger and the breakout of Justin Steele have been the biggest headlines (e.g. here are here) surrounding the Cubs' success this year, I think it's about time we adjust the spotlight toward right field for the North Siders and appreciate the second big-league season of one Seiya Suzuki.

Though he's never quite recaptured the magic of his scorching hot first month in MLB last April, it'd be hard to call Suzuki's rookie season a disappointment aside from the finger injury that cost him about a month of action. He more than held his own as an above-average hitter (116 wRC+) and was a decent defender with a strong arm in the outfield. In Year 2, Suzuki has maintained what was already an excellent approach at the plate — he rarely chases out of the strike zone and doesn't whiff much in the zone — while improving his quality of contact to unlock more power, with his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity both taking sizable steps up from last season. He's quietly been one of the best hitters in baseball since the start of August and is suddenly fueling a Cubs offense that looks as dangerous as it has all season, right as the games matter the most.

This notable step forward isn't just a big deal for the Cubs for their current postseason push — it should give the organization even greater confidence that he can indeed be a franchise cornerstone to build around as the contention window opens further in years to come.

NL West: Dodgers' rotation in a bad place

Julio Urías' placement on administrative leave indefinitely by MLB following his recent arrest has added another absence to a lengthy list of Dodgers pitchers already missing in action because of injury, the most recent of which being Tony Gonsolin needing Tommy John surgery.

As for the "healthy" guys, Clayton Kershaw's velocity was way down in his Tuesday start, though he insisted everything was totally fine and cool and good, nothing to worry about. Lance Lynn has suddenly reverted to the first-half homer-prone White Sox version of himself at the worst possible time. Ryan Yarbrough has been fairly steady in a piggyback role throwing in the middle innings after an opener, but the fact that he's remained in that role says a lot about the degree to which they trust him as a full-blown starter.

After the veterans, it's a wave of younger, inexperienced arms with tantalizing stuff but limited big-league success to show for it: Ryan Pepiot, Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone so far, with prospects Nick Frasso, Landon Knack and Kyle Hurt possibly pressed into action sooner rather than later. Walker Buehler is seemingly on his way back from his second Tommy John surgery, but it'd be foolish to expect him at maximum capacity this quickly coming off rehab. All of this depth being tested is further exacerbated by the fact that for the first time in years, the Dodgers' bullpen is merely pretty good, and not an army of game-ending relief aces with the lowest collective ERA in MLB. There's far less margin for error.

Rookie flamethrower Bobby Miller really finding his stride recently is just about the only bright spot on this staff right now, though questions about how the team should be managing what will soon be a career-high workload looms over his ongoing development, as well.

Panic buttons probably shouldn't even be available to press for teams on pace to win 99 games in early September, but the Dodgers' pitching situation has officially reached a place where we have to wonder how they'd get through an additional month of postseason baseball against top-tier competition. It's always dumb to bet against them, but I'll be fascinated to see how they patch these innings together for the remainder of this month and beyond. And to think, things were seemingly fine just two weeks ago.

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He has covered baseball for his entire adult life, most notably for MLB.com, DAZN and The Ringer. He's a Mariners fan living in the Eastern Time Zone, which means he loves a good 10 p.m. first pitch. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.