Excessive-leverage lefty reliever Tanner Scott has agreed to phrases with the Dodgers on a four-year, $72 million free-agent contract, experiences MLB.com. The workforce has not but confirmed the signing.
Scott is the most recent transfer in a star-studded Dodgers offseason. Most notably, they landed Japanese ace righty Roki Sasaki, who will solely value them a $6.5 million signing bonus given his age (23) and the foundations relating to worldwide gamers. The Dodgers additionally signed two-time Cy Younger winner Blake Snell, outfielder Michael Conforto, and Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim. In addition they re-signed Teoscar Hernández and Blake Treinen, and prolonged NLCS MVP Tommy Edman long-term.
The Dodgers have a tendency to remain versatile with their bullpen reasonably than lock somebody into the nearer’s position — 14 totally different pitchers bought a save for Los Angeles final yr, together with 4 pitchers with at the least 5 saves every — so it stays to be seen how Scott will probably be deployed. For now, supervisor Dave Roberts’ bullpen seems one thing like this:
Pitchers on the skin of the rotation trying in (Landon Knack, Bobby Miller, Justin Wrobleski, and many others.) might additionally enter the bullpen combine. The Dodgers are baseball’s greatest workforce, although they’ve a really exhausting time maintaining pitchers wholesome. They’ve extra MLB-caliber pitchers than roster spots for the time being, and so they’ll want most of them. Accidents include the territory for Los Angeles.
This previous season, the right-hander Scott boasted a 1.75 ERA in 72 mixed innings for the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres, who acquired him main as much as the commerce deadline. Over that span, Scott struck out 84 batters and issued 32 unintentional walks. He additionally picked up 22 saves and notched his first All-Star choice. Scott is not far faraway from a 2023 season that noticed him prime 100 strikeouts – a fairly significant feat for a recent reliever. Scott this previous season averaged 97 mph along with his fastball, which put him within the 91st percentile amongst major-league hurlers.
Earlier within the offseason, CBS Sports activities ranked Scott because the No. 27 out there free agent within the present class. This is a part of our write-up:
Scott’s final two seasons have been one thing to behold. In 150 innings, he is notched a 2.04 ERA and has struck out greater than 31% of the batters he is confronted. Not dangerous for somebody who got here into his age-28 season geared up with a 4.61 ERA. Scott has two big-time choices: a 97 mph rising heater and a devastating slider that generated almost 40% whiffs in 2024. He has battled his command all through his profession, however in any other case he is a compelling candidate to be generally known as the very best and nastiest nameless reliever within the sport.
For his profession, the 30-year-old Scott has an ERA+ of 125. Over the past two seasons, nevertheless, that ERA+ determine is 224. The Dodgers have a historical past of enhancing pitchers (Kopech final yr is a notable instance) and are little doubt hoping that the more moderen, upgraded model of Scott prevails transferring ahead.
FanGraphs estimates the Dodgers’ aggressive stability tax payroll at $370 million after the Scott signing. That’s nicely forward of the second-place New York Mets ($297 million) although not wildly out of line with the $351 million payroll Los Angeles ran in 2024.
