The Dodgers’ season will start earlier than usual in 2024 with a two-game series in South Korea on March 20 and 21.
But Walker Buehler’s 2024 might start late – by design, not necessity.
“He’s doing well. He continues to progress. The ball’s coming out good according to our guys that have seen him as of late,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said earlier in the offseason of Buehler’s continued recovery from a second Tommy John surgery performed in August 2022.
“As he keeps going and progressing, we’ll figure out exactly what the schedule for his (2024) season looks like. We don’t want to get too far ahead with how much time we have before spring training.”
The recent additions of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow make the Dodgers’ decision to ‘slow play’ Buehler entering the 2024 season much easier.
Buehler is expected to be at full strength for spring training. He returned to the mound late in the 2023 season and satisfied his own goal to pitch in a game before the end of the season by throwing two innings for Triple-A Oklahoma City in early September.
But he struggled with his recovery after throwing sessions and was shut down after that single Sept. 3 outing.
The Dodgers will handle him carefully in 2024, keeping a limit on his workload. What that limit might be, Gomes would not say.
“The innings part – we’ve talked about it a lot with (Dodgers pitching coach Mark) Prior,” Gomes said. “Five innings, 110 pitches is a different workload than seven innings, 95 pitches. I think you just have to make sure you’re taking each outing and making sure he’s feeling good and look at what the velocity is, how he responds.
“There’s so many factors to go into rather than just saying, ‘At X amount of innings, you’re going to turn into a pumpkin and you can’t throw any more pitches.’ It’s far more nuanced than that. That’s where having the relationship and knowing Walker as well as we do that we just have to have those conversations because ‘October Walker’ is really, really exciting. We want to make sure that he is in a really good place if we’re in the position to get into the playoffs.”
Having ‘October Walker’ might mean not having ‘March Walker’ or ‘April Walker.’ One option that makes sense is to have Buehler’s 2024 season start later than the schedule might indicate – saving innings at the start of the season rather than building in a break at some point when the season is ongoing.
“He’ll be ready to go in spring training, but when we decide to make his debut in 2024 is going to be determined,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said earlier this month. “Whether it’s the first week or a month later, we’re going to kind of wait and see how spring goes.
“You could argue to start and have a stop or an abbreviation throughout the season. Or you could argue just start a little bit later so there’s no pause. … Obviously, Walker’s going to be a big part of the conversation and then we’ll be all in on that.”
Gomes said that plan is still “fluid” with the expectation that Buehler will start throwing bullpen sessions “more frequently in January leading into February.”
“That’s an important time,” Gomes said.
Buehler’s return to his previous form, joining Yamamoto and Glasnow at the front of the rotation, would go a long way toward turning a problem area entering the offseason into a formidable area of strength. But Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the team won’t be asking Buehler to carry the staff.
“We’ll bet on him being really good next year,” Friedman said. “But it’s also not something that all of our hopes and dreams for 2024 are going to be resting on his shoulders.”