The Los Angeles Dodgers lost starter Brett Anderson in the third inning of Tuesday night's game against the Atlanta Braves. The left-hander injured his Achilles tendon and it's unknown how serious the injury is. This should increase the trade rumors.
Dodgers' general manager Farhan Zaidi weighed in on the team's pursuit of starting pitcher after last night's loss to the Braves.
"I don't know that we could ratchet up our search for starting pitching any more," he told Mark Saxon of ESPNLosAngeles.com. "But this emphasizes the need to add."
Manager Don Mattingly seems worried about the team's cast of starters too.
"I'm pretty concerned with the state of the rotation at this point," he told Saxon. "We've had injuries, and we're getting deeper and deeper into it. As consistent as Brett has been, we're kind of counting on him to be that guy throwing six or seven innings, keeping us in the game."
The only thing to take away from this whole situation is that the Dodgers absolutely need to acquire a couple of starters before the deadline for the sake of 2015 and beyond. The depth behind Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke consists of Mike Bolsinger, Carlos Frias and Brandon Beachy, depending on how long Anderson is out.
"The Dodgers have learned Brandon Beachy won't be the solution to their problems, at least not in the near future," writes Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.
"Beachy was another reclamation project, as he was in the process of recovering from his second reconstructive elbow operation when the Dodgers signed him in the spring."
There are a number of marquee names that will be available before the deadline (Cole Hamels, Johnny Cueto, Scott Kazmir) and others who could hit the market (David Price, Yovani Gallardo, Jeff Samardzija, Jordan Zimmermann, Doug Fister, Tyson Ross, Andrew Cashner, James Shields, Ian Kennedy, Dan Haren, Mat Latos and others). Los Angeles has endless options, but they do not want to surrender their top two prospects: Corey Seager and Julio Urias. They also might be reluctant to give up catcher Austin Barnes and right-hander Jose De Leon, according to Peter Gammons.
Could that be a problem?
"As you can imagine, a lot of the conversations we're having, teams are asking for the same guys," Zaidi added, via Saxon. "It might just be a question of who's willing to pull the trigger with us first and come to a deal we can agree on. Obviously, time is a little bit of a premium for us."
Most of the pitchers available will likely cost any team a top prospect, but the Dodgers are of the few that have a deep farm system and can make a deal without losing their top talent. Seager (No. 1) and Urias (No. 4) are in ESPN Insider Keith Law's top five and Urias is No. 20.
Saxon mentions the team has other "emerging young players" such as Scott Schebler and Grant Holmes who could be of interest to other clubs. Alex Guerrero is also a candidate because of Justin Turner's outstanding play and the logjam in the outfield.
The Dodgers have the club to make a deep postseason run, but they'll need to add an established arm to ensure that. With other teams searching for rotation help (Astros, Blue Jays, Royals, Yankees, Pirates, Orioles and Rangers), there will be a lot of competition between now and July 31.
"When we get to 4:01 p.m. ET next Friday, a minute after the trade deadline, I'm going to be shocked if they don't wind up with either Cole Hamels, David Price, Johnny Cueto, or perhaps even two of those three," ESPN Insider Buster Onley said on the Baseball Tonight Podcast.
If Zaidi and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman find themselves in a tough spot, is it possible they may have to surrender a prospect they weren't wishing to?
We'll know for sure in the next nine days.
