PHOENIX — All of Tyler Glasnow’s arsenal was working in his Cactus League debut against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday afternoon. Glasnow faced seven batters and struck out four — two on the curveball, one on the fastball and one on the slider.
Early spring training performances are hardly concrete indicators, but Glasnow’s outing was still an encouraging showing for a Los Angeles Dodgers team that will spend the next month figuring out how to piece together its rotation. Blake Snell has yet to throw off a mound as the Dodgers intentionally slow-play his spring. While the team has not officially declared that he will start the year on the injured list, with one month remaining until Opening Day, the calendar all but confirms it.
The Dodgers likely will not open the season with a traditional rotation — even with a favorable schedule that grants them four off days before April 17. There are too many uncertainties. Along with Snell’s likely IL designation, the organization does not know what to expect from Shohei Ohtani, who will attempt to keep his throwing program on track while playing in the World Baseball Classic but will not pitch in the tournament. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pitch for Team Japan, and the Dodgers expect him to be at full strength at the conclusion of the spring.
But he can’t be the only one. Glasnow, along with Roki Sasaki, will need to have a traditional progression throughout March. The Dodgers are counting on it.
“If I had to look at guys that I feel really good about right now, to kind of have a normal workload, Tyler and Roki would be at the top with Yamamoto,” manager Dave Roberts said.
The Dodgers were prepared for rotation questions. Nitpicking disadvantages after winning back-to-back titles feels pedantic, but monitoring pitcher workload after two consecutive short offseasons is important — especially given the vast amount of pitcher injuries the Dodgers have accrued over the last two seasons. Los Angeles believes it has the pitching depth to cover April. The plan is to break camp with six or seven starters stretched out to roughly five innings or 75 pitches. That plan becomes much easier to execute if Glasnow and Sasaki post solid springs.
Sasaki’s spring debut did not go well. His erratic command led to three earned runs over 1 and 1/3 innings, though he settled down after giving up back-to-back run-scoring doubles to punch out two batters via the fastball. It was a disappointing start after Sasaki had impressed on the backfields facing live hitters, but it’s not anything Roberts is overly concerned about.
“I thought he was overthrowing,” Roberts said. “I haven’t seen that all spring. It’s probably just getting in live competition.”
Both Glasnow and Sasaki are coming off injuries last season, though they are in far different places in terms of how they’ll be evaluated. Injuries have cost Glasnow parts of his last three seasons. He reported to Dodgers camp at full strength and said his mechanics feel the best they have since 2022, after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
“My biggest goal is to just stay healthy and log innings and not be put on the IL for an extended amount of time,” Glasnow said. “It’s still relatively early, but I think mechanically I’ve been in such a good spot since last year, and taking it into the offseason to where it’s like a seamless transition … It feels like it’s a lot easier to be athletic. It feels natural to me now, where I’m not thinking about it, I’m just pitching.”
Sasaki has been working on incorporating a consistent third pitch — not a cutter or a slider, but something in between — to wield along with his fastball and forkball. When Sasaki is at his best, he can regularly maintain his four-seamer’s triple-digit velocity. Last season, however, his fastball was one of the most hittable in the sport, with opposing hitters slugging .500 against it.
The Dodgers can chalk up Sasaki’s inconsistency to his balky shoulder and the often under-emphasized factor of adjusting to major-league hitting from overseas. The club is also confident Sasaki has a better understanding of his health, the major league season and how to communicate with the organization. But he still must post results in March.
“Absolutely,” Roberts said when asked if Sasaki needs to show progress throughout exhibition play. “He’s just got to mix better. He’s got to command the fastball. Like I said, I just attribute it to first-game adrenaline. But, yeah, you want to see progress from everyone — especially someone like Roki who’s trying to build off last year.”
Roki Sasaki threw against the Arizona Diamondbacks in his Cactus League debut on Wednesday. (Photo by Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
Even with Glasnow and Sasaki healthy, the Dodgers will need other arms. One of the pitchers penciled in for a starting role was Emmet Sheehan. That remains the plan, but Sheehan’s spring has been set back after the right-hander missed multiple days with an illness. Sheehan has yet to appear in a Cactus League game, but the Dodgers believe he still has time to ramp up to their targeted pitch count.
If that’s not the case, Gavin Stone could have an advantage.
Stone’s long-awaited return to the mound culminated in a scoreless inning against the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday at Camelback Ranch — 15 pitches (11 of them strikes) with two strikeouts, both on his patented changeup. It marked the first time the 27-year-old pitched in a game since Aug. 31, 2024. He had spent most of that year emerging as a force in the Dodgers’ rotation. But right soreness inflammation cost Stone the rest of the season, and the surgery he needed to address it cost him the entirety of 2025.
Now, after 18 months, Stone enters spring training as a legitimate candidate to make the Opening Day roster. Whether that is as a starter, long reliever or a version of both will depend on a variety of things, none as pressing as the right-hander’s health. But as the Dodgers start to piece together their rotation, they know they’ll have to be creative with several starters’ usages in April.
River Ryan, who missed all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery, is another name to watch — though he might be a tad further down in the depth chart. Ryan tossed a scoreless inning in relief in his first appearance of the spring Wednesday, walking one and striking out one on 19 pitches (eight for strikes). The Dodgers are also cognizant of the different recovery times between shoulder surgery and elbow surgery, which could be why Stone projects to be ahead of Ryan in this (very early) part of spring.
Yamamoto will log one more start for Los Angeles on Friday in Scottsdale against the San Francisco Giants before departing for the WBC. By the time he returns, the Dodgers expect to have a much better idea of what their Opening Day rotation will look like. One thing is for certain: It will likely be unorthodox. But as of now at least, the Dodgers feel comfortable in their ability to pull it off.