The Los Angeles Dodgers have had another historic offseason.
This offseason, coming off the franchise’s eighth World Series title, put the Dodgers in a position where —believe it or not— they look even better than the team that just dominated the baseball world in October.
One of the few downfalls of retooling such a team, is that there is almost no room for pieces that are not effortlessly fitting into the current roster.
There gets to be even less room if you are a free agent pitcher. The amount of room for a role shrinks even more when your most recent playoff performance saw a 1-2 record, 7.36 ERA, and 8 home runs allowed through five appearances.
That state line is from none other than Burbank, CA native Jack Flaherty.
Flaherty had a solid regular season with the Detroit Tigers and Dodgers — a 13-7 record through 28 starts, a 3.17 ERA, and his best strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5.11 — which is precisely why he is drawing interest from a few teams across MLB.
Tim Kelly of Bleacher Report predicted that the 29-year-old right-hander’s next contract would be a three-year $60 million deal and linked him to a few Dodger rivals.
After making it to the final three teams in the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes, it is no secret why the San Diego Padres are linked to Flaherty upon losing out on the phenom.
The Padres have made a lot of chatter this offseason about potentially trading stars, but have yet to make a Major League trade or signing. Flaherty isn’t a budget option by any means, but San Diego adding the right-hander into its rotation would be scary.
Kelly also threw out the Los Angeles Angels as a team linked to Flaherty. It is a similar story for the Halos, exept they have actually made moves this offseason by bringing in Yusei Kikuchi and Kyle Hendricks this offseason to an average rotation of Reid Demers, Jose Soriano, and Tyler Anderson among other signings.
Flaherty would put them over the top as one of the best rotations in the American League.
An interesting name Kelly links to Flaherty is the Chicago Cubs. Although they signed Matthew Boyd and Colin Rea this offseason, there isn’t much else to the Cubs rotation besides Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele.
Flaherty would give the fans at Wrigley Field a lot more confidence in their starting pitching as Chicago looks to make it back to the postseason.
The Atlanta Braves are always going to be contenders out of the National League, and adding Flaherty would make an 89-win team significantly better.
Joining a rotation of Chris Sale and Reynaldo Lopez would be crucial for Atlanta as they lost Charlie Morton and —one of Flaherty’s high school teammates— Max Fried this offseason.
