The Dodgers have placed center fielder Joc Pederson on the 10-day DL, per a club announcement. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by outfielder Brett Eibner.
Pederson, who just turned 25, has a groin injury. It doesn’t seem likely to keep him out for a lengthy stretch, but the Dodgers evidently felt it was worth getting out ahead of with a DL placement. He’ll look to pick up his hitting a bit upon his return, after posting a tepid .220/.322/.340 mark through his first 18 games of the season.
Notably, too, Los Angeles is set to bring up talented young starter Julio Urias for his 2017 debut, per J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group (Twitter link). The 20-year-old had opened the year at Triple-A as part of an effort to control his innings.
Urias has unsurprisingly dominated at the highest level of the minors, though he has also permitted nine walks in his 14 frames. Still, he has nothing left to prove there; the young southpaw already turned in 77 innings of 3.39 ERA ball in the majors last season.
It seems that Urias will take the ball Thursday, meaning that righty Kenta Maeda will be bumped from his next scheduled start. He’ll pitch Friday, per skipper Dave Roberts, as MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick tweets. The 29-year-old has been hit hard in the early going, with 24 hits and seven long balls recorded against him through 19 innings — though he has also maintained his excellent strikeout (9.0 K/9) and walk (2.4 BB/9) rates.
After this first outing, Urias could stay in the majors or head back to Albuquerque. How things shake out could also depend in part upon the status of Rich Hill, who is still on the DL with a troublesome blister.
jesserodz
Urias would be heading to OKC, not Albuquerque. Just a heads up!
cantstopthechop12
cantstopthechop12
Hahaha
dodgerfan711
The date to gain another year of control on Bellinger has to be coming up. Cant imagine the dodgers dont call him up once that time comes
thinkblech
I disagree on the imminent call up – he has struggled when behind in the count, and his K% has been too high – these are legitimate things to work on away from the bright lights. On top of that, he’s only had 85 AAA PAs. For the sake of comparison, Seager had 464 and Pederson had 553 before they were called up, so it doesn’t fit with recent top prospect callups. Barring a catastrophic injury, I think he’ll stay down and get his reps, to hopefully avoid the Joey Gallo style yo-yo.
dodgerfan711
It just depends. If he keeps hitting the way he is they wont have a choice. Right now he is tearing the cover off the ball but that can change at any moment
thegreatcerealfamine
Exactly.
Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA
That date to gain the extra year has already passed. The day coming up , which is mid may I believe, is the super two date. The thing I question here is at the point is if Bellinger would be actually be the best choice, because he still could use some seasoning. The K rate most likely ensures he’s not seeing very many fb and it’s going to be a healthy diet of breaking balls away away away. My gut tells me Calhoun would probably be the better pure hitter in the majors at this point. The issue with Calhoun is he’s entrenched trying to learn to play 2nd.
Senioreditor
The date has not passed yet and he could still be a super 2 do they should keep him down. They’re not winning anything with this inept group so they might as well save him for an extra year.
redsfan48
Super 2 does not cost you a year of control. It just makes the player arbitration eligible for an extra year where they would have been making near the minimum.
Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA
Yeah that’s the point extra year and super two are completely different. The date for an extra year is two weeks into the season. So yes it has passed; 1 year equals 172 days out of 180. So even if he we brought up now today which he is now the most service time he could earn would be 158 days. 158 days does not equal 172.
dodgerruss
If Julio is headed to Albuquerque that means he’s been traded to the Rockies. Now if the Rox want to give up Arenado and Blackman we might be able to make a deal. Turner could always move to second base.
outinleftfield
LOL. The Rockies would expect Urias and Bellinger for either Arenado or Blackmon.
redsfan48
And the conversation would go absolutely nowhere. Dodgers wouldn’t do that, especially for Blackmon.
dodgerruss
I totally agree!
dodgerruss
Of course they would and rightfully so. (for Arenado at least). That was my attempt at humor as I was kidding the good folks at MLB Trade Rumors for confusing the Dodgers and Rockies AAA cities.
outinleftfield
I don’t get why people are expecting more than .220 from Pederson. After 2 full seasons and he has a .227 BA. Seems to me that he is hitting just about what he is capable of.
jdgoat
Those two seasons have been well above average though. Who cares if he only hits .220, he gets on at an above average rate and has great power. I’d say that .220 is the least important number for a player like him.
davidcoonce74
Exactly. If we’re looking at any numbers look at anything except batting average. OBP, Slugging, ISO…all these are a way more useful way to measure a hitter than batting average.
greatdaysport
He reminds me of another over hyped Dodger, Greg Brock who hit big home runs but not much else and didn’t last long.
Senioreditor
Trade him now he’s a bad Jay Bruce that will get expensive in a few years. He’s made very little adjustment since day 1, he can’t hit lefthanders and will not be worth the 10mil he’ll soon command.
Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA
Besides the fact that BA really isn’t the only judging tool, last year was more of an indicator of what he can do. Especially since the first year you could see it all just snowball. You can also see the adjustments he’s made are night and day from year one to year two to year 3. By standard BA he’s never going to be the .330 hitter. But everything else he does if he’s around that .270 .850-900 mark he’s extremely valuable. In the leadoff spot he looked really good. He worked counts and didn’t look like he was trying to do to much, barreled up balls. Granted it was short sample size of all short sample size, but that looked his perfect fit.
BlueSkyLA
It isn’t the only judging tool, but if you look at his splits, he has most of his success lower down the order and he gets most of his PAs 6-8, and not for no reason. The other problem with him leading off is his poor base running skills. The problem with Pederson is he doesn’t have a perfect fit anywhere in the order, and he won’t have one until he learns to use more of the field.
chesteraarthur
guys who strike out 28%+ of the time rarely get t0 .a consistent 270 ba. Kris Bryant did it in 2015, but it took a 378 babip. Over 11oo pas Joc has a 224 ba, seems like 270 would be quite a stretch.
AZ14
He has nothing left to prove? 9 walks in 14 innings is an issue that he’ll need to prove whatever level he’s at
RedSox2017
.