Dodgers' early injuries are worrisome, but they're still the class of the West

One of the few things that could derail the Dodgers this year is injuries. Wouldn't you know it, the season is a week old and we're already hearing Clayton Kershaw and Brian Wilson may miss significant time.

Wilson has a common (1-in-5) side effect of Tommy John Surgery, where he's experiencing nerve irritation. Best case, he comes back after a few weeks of rest and medication. Worst case he needs a surgery to reset the nerve. Even worst case, he comes back at some point this season I think.

The significance of Kershaw's injury keeps growing. First it was like a sore back. Then he was expected to be out for a few weeks. Now it is maybe two months. And it's a muscle that's technically part of his rotator cuff.  Shoulder injuries are scarier than elbow injuries for pitchers, because the repairability is much less. So everyone is saying "back injury" instead of "shoulder injury" but to be realistic it is at least a little shouldery. Should we call it a shack injury or a boulder injury?

Unless we continue to hear worse things, both guys are coming back. Frankly, I like the idea of reducing everyone's workload this year anyway. The Dodgers are favored to run away with the division, and arriving at the end of the regular season with everyone healthy and rested ought to be the main goal (unless an unexpected race develops in the division).

Was Kershaw injured as a result of the #Dodgers' trip to Australia? Pitching coach Rick Honeycutt won't rule it out. http://t.co/OERbhi4nsq
— Dylan Hernandez (@dylanohernandez) April 3, 2014

A little foresight would have gone a long way there, Honey. Maybe don't fly your ace 16 hours and 18 time zones away to start a game after a short spring to prepare, when you expect to win your division by 10 games more. But anyway ...

If these two were replaced by replacement level players for 70 starter innings pitched and 30 reliever innings pitched, the Dodgers still project to 95 wins (down from 98) and a comfortable division title. But in point of fact, Wilson's setup innings will be pitched by other good bullpen guys, whose innings will themselves be replaced by innings from Chris Withrow and Jose Dominguez. Kershaw's innings, meanwhile, will be pitched by Paul Maholm and Josh Beckett. All these guys are better than replacement level. So, in light of current injuries, I still expect the Dodgers to win 96 games.

Bottom line, I am far, far away from worried about championship hopes this year. Even a heartbreaking disaster scenario where Kershaw and Wilson are out for the year, and we start to see Triple-A starters coming in, the Dodgers still probably win 92 games and get to the playoffs. Trying to go through the playoffs in that case becomes a lot less likely, but as long as these guys are expected to be back strong by September, the Dodgers remain the World Series favorite (not that they have a greater than 50 percent chance of winning the World Series, just that they have more chance than any other single team).

Dodgers 3, Padres 2: Yasiel Puig disrespects San Diego with a Monster homer

The Dodgers moved to 3-1 on the young season with a win over the Padres behind Puig's bat and Zack Greinke's solid season debut.

• Puig hit his first home run of the season, a 2-run bomb to left. It was so, so disrespectful. He also singled.
• Juan Uribe had his second 3-hit game of the season as he doubled once and singled twice.
• Greinke threw five innings of two-run ball, allowing four baserunners while fanning five and walking two. He also allowed a long-ball and threw a wild pitch.
• Kenley Jansen worked out of a tough bases-loaded ninth inning jam to close the door on the Friars, striking out a pair in the process.
• Chris Withrow, Paco Rodriguez, and J.P. Howell all threw scoreless innings in relief of Greinke.

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Brian Wilson is headed to the DL with elbow issues. Eric Stephen of True Blue LA has more on the injury and Wilson's attempt to pitch through it on Sunday.

Lessons and questions from 2014 Dodgers' spring training

The Cactus League portion of the Dodgers' year is officially over. There are a lot of questions on this team. So what did we learn?

 Pitchers 

• Ross Stripling - out for the year; Tommy John surgery 
• Javy Guerra - 8 IP / 4BB / 5 K = designated for assignment
• Brandon League - 16 batters faced, 1 K, only 6 outs, 16 ERA = a real problem. 
• Josh Beckett - The rib removal seems to have helped. He's on the mound and looking "meh." Hopefully with some more time, he can be a contributor again 
• Seth Rosin - 11 IP / 2BB / 12 K = vindication of the curious Rule 5 pick, so how do we keep him around? 
• Jose Dominguez - 8IP / 2 BB / 9K / 3H = want 
• Kenley Jansen - 7IP / 1BB/ 7K/ 2H = ready 
• Julio Urias - got in a game on the major league side and more than held his own at age 17. 
• Dan Haren - not looking great, but OK 
• Hyun-Jin Ryu - the one starter looking good 
• Paul Maholm - not a good spring, but should come around to be mediocre 
• Clayton Kershaw / Zack Greinke - not looking that sharp but expect them to turn it on 
• J.P. Howell / Chris Perez - OK 
• Chris Withrow - not OK. back to the minors with you 
• Zach Lee - not ready yet 
• Jamey Wright - if he was a non-roster invitee like usual, he'd not be on the team right now. 
• Paco Rodriguez - supposedly discovered flaw in his mechanics that was his downfall last year. Some control issues but an OK spring all in all. 
• Red Patterson - Got a long enough look after a decent AAA season that I think they're looking at him for any emergency starts that need to be made this year. 
• Matt Magill - did not look horrible. Control was under control. 
• Stephen Fife - forgotten man, barely got in a game 
• Brian Wilson - he has a decent knuckler! 
• Chad Billingsley - we should be seeing him sooner rather than later 

Hitters

• Justin Turner - Hit well, fielded OK all around the infield, made the team 
• Miguel Rojas - confounded expectations by hitting well and fielding poorly. Not going to be needed. 
• Chone Figgins - still has a good eye. No evidence of being able to drive the ball. Fast, but not super-fast. Questionable how much he'll add right now, but the Dodgers want to give him a chance based on his approach. So much so, they cut Javy Guerra. 
• Dee Gordon - made a lot of nice plays at 2B. 13 pounds of muscle -> four triples. Still fast. Getting smarter about his game, and working harder. Probably the opening day starter. 
• Alex Guerrero - hit well, made the routine plays but they seem to want to start him in the minors anyway. 
• Yasiel Puig - Starting to conjure up Andruw Jones, never a good thing. A wasted spring. He better get it together soon and adapt to the way pitchers are approaching him. 
• Carl Crawford - looked terrible. Don't want to speculate, but just have to trust him to be there when the bell rings. 
• Andre Ethier - Showed up prepared, looked good, great attitude. Ready to play all 3 OF spots. 
• Matt Kemp - progressing on schedule. Beast mode cometh.
• Joc Pederson - flashed some potential and could be ready around mid-season. 
• Mike Baxter - for some reason, he will get AB this year. 
• Miguel Olivo - buh bye. 
• A.J. Ellis - terrible spring as a hitter. Good D though. 
• Tim Federowicz - even worse spring as a hitter than A.J. 
• Hanley Ramirez - does not look like last year's world-beater but more like the 2011/2012 Hanley. Maybe he's not getting last year's daily doses of lengthy shoulder treatment since it's just Spring. 
• Adrian Gonzalez / Scott Van Slyke / Juan Uribe - just what you'd expect. 
• Brendan Harris - also just what you'd expect, and not making this team. 
• Erisbel Arruebarrena - he made it to America, but not into a game. I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the majors this year at some point anyway. Declared a willingness to play wherever he's needed.

Looking at the Dodgers' numerous bullpen options for 2014

The Dodgers have a LOT of guys who are viable bullpen options, not even counting starting pitchers who are biding time. It's likely all these guys see action at some point during the year, but what should the pecking order should be?

I looked at the peripheral stats for all the guys and projected how I think they'll do this year. The rigorous approach led to some surprises and insights. Here's my list of candidates, and projections for these players, with Dodger Stadium as their home park, in 2014.

Pitcher	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	ERA
Kenley Jansen	12.6	2.5	0.7	2.10
Brian Wilson	8.9	3.9	0.3	2.77
Jose Dominguez	8.5	4.3	0.4	3.15
Paco Rodriguez (L)	10.2	4.5	0.7	3.29
Jamey Wright	7.0	3.5	0.6	3.53
Yimi Garcia	8.6	3.3	1.1	3.64
Javy Guerra	7.5	4.0	0.7	3.76
Chris Perez	8.4	3.4	1.1	3.89
J.P. Howell (L)	7.6	3.8	0.9	3.91
Scott Elbert (L)	9.0	4.3	1.0	3.96
Brandon League	5.4	2.7	1.0	4.08
Seth Rosin	6.5	3.6	1.1	4.15
Onelki Garcia (L)	7.9	5.4	0.9	4.17
Chris Withrow	9.1	5.2	1.2	4.79

Kenley Jansen, of course, is a beast, and I feel good about Brian Wilson ($10 million looks like an overpay in light of later "closer" signings this winter, but whatever). Rodriguez ought to bounce back from a poor close to the season. That's three good guys, which goes a long way to having a solid bullpen. Relievers are volatile, but you can be pretty sure about the A-listers here at least.

Chris Perez and Brandon League are what they are -- and it could go a lot worse than what you see here.

Some guys I thought were pretty good actually just got lucky last year, or temporarily elevated themselves (I'll believe it's permanent if they do it again), and I'm not sure I see them carrying their performance level through to 2014. I'm speaking specifically about J.P. Howell and Chris Withrow.

A lot of people are down on Withrow, and I couldn't see why. I remember him getting a lot of outs last year. He did better in the majors than he ever did in the minors in terms of strikeouts and walks. He also had a completely unsustainable .205 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Howell also had a crazy-low BABIP (.241) and a HR rate 1/3 of his career average.

On the other hand, I think there's a few guys who I weren't thinking of that highly who could surprise this year.

Jose Dominguez , Yimi Garica and Javy Guerra look ready to make the jump to solid big-league contributors. Dominguez is going to get the strikeouts with that 100 MPH fastball, and I think he'll continue to limit the number of home runs he allows. His control isn't great, but it'll play. Yimi Garcia has a great slider that's striking out everyone. Guerra has been up and down, but if you normalize his BABIP & HR/FB, he actually looked good last year in both the majors and Triple-A. Jamey Wright is an ageless marvel. Seth Rosin, I don't see what the Dodgers see.

Rodriguez and Howell have the two lefty spots pretty much locked up. Scott Elbert Onelki Garcia are both recovering from surgery. Elbert is a mid-year return, while Garcia hopefully is ready close to opening day.

As far as minor-league starters spending a little time in the bullpen, I see Zach Lee (4.22 ERA) and Stephen Fife (4.28) as not that great this year. Chris Reed (4.69) and Matt Magill (4.96) just do not look good to me. Ross Stripling (3.56) is the one guy I think could contribute in that role. The numbers in parentheses are how I project them as major league starters, so perhaps they'd do a bit better in the bullpen (on average, bullpen ERAs are about 0.3 lower despite having lower quality pitchers than starting rotations). However, maybe they'd have a hard time adjusting (Fife's season was basically ruined by the disruption last year).

Paul Maholm (3.83), Josh Beckett (3.80) and Chad Billingsley (3.55) all might or might not be asked to get in the bullpen business too, with Dan Haren (3.62) as an extreme outside shot. Most likely, they'd be at least toward the middle to upper-end of the pack if they had to do that.

A lot will go into the decision besides performance -- who has what kind of contract situation in terms of minor league options, Rule 5 status, etc. There's also who the Dodgers might want to showcase for a trade, or how Beckett's recovery is going, and so on. But opening day is just a point in time. People will get injured or be ineffective and others will get their chances.

Photo credit: Dustin Nosler, Feelin' Kinda Blue