{"id":549575,"date":"2026-02-01T22:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T22:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/549575\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T22:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T22:21:12","slug":"dodgers-sign-cole-irvin-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/549575\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers Sign Cole Irvin To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dodgers have signed left-hander Cole Irvin<\/a> to a minor league contract, Just Baseball Media\u2019s Aram Leighton reports<\/a>.\u00a0 Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds<\/a> that Irvin\u2019s deal includes an invitation to the Dodgers\u2019 big league spring camp.\u00a0 It\u2019s a late birthday present for Irvin, who just celebrated his 32nd birthday yesterday.<\/p>\n

Irvin makes his return to North American ball after spending the 2025 season in Seoul with the Doosan Bears of the KBO League.\u00a0 Over 28 starts and 144 2\/3 innings with the Bears, Irvin posted a 4.48 ERA, 19.7% strikeout rate, and 12.2% walk rate.\u00a0 For comparison\u2019s sake, Irvin had a 4.54 ERA, 17.1 K% and 5.6 BB% over 593 innings at the Major League level from 2019-24, so the lack of control is a sudden red flag.\u00a0 Irvin did display a severe lack of control over a handful of games with the Twins in 2024 and with the Orioles\u2019 Triple-A affiliate, but over a small sample size.<\/p>\n

The southpaw had his usual strong command over the bulk of the 2024 season, though that was pretty much the only high point of a year that saw Irvin post a 5.11 ERA across 111 innings with Baltimore and Minnesota.\u00a0 The O\u2019s designated Irvin for assignment in September 2024, and he finished the season with a few outings for the Twins following a waiver claim.<\/p>\n

Back in 2021-22, Irvin posted a 4.11 ERA over 359 1\/3 innings for the Athletics, seemingly establishing himself as a durable starter who could eat innings and deliver quality results.\u00a0 Irvin\u2019s lack of strikeouts or high velocity made his production perhaps a bit of a high-wire act, however, and a trade to the Orioles prior to the 2023 resulted in some struggles as a starter before he righted the ship and became an effective reliever out of the O\u2019s pen.<\/p>\n

It is fair to guess that the Dodgers could use Irvin in any variety of roles as the club continues to stockpile as much pitching depth as possible.\u00a0 After two World Series runs and with every expectation of another championship in 2026, Los Angeles is building a pitching staff built for seven months of baseball, not six.\u00a0 If Irvin is able to recapture any of his old form, he could be a useful source of innings as a long man or spot starter to help L.A. manage its arms over the regular-season grind.\u00a0 Given the Dodgers\u2019 track record at pitching development, it is also possible that Irvin can unlock something and achieve a new level of consistent success at the MLB level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers have signed left-hander Cole Irvin to a minor league contract, Just Baseball Media\u2019s Aram Leighton reports.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,72269,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-549575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cole-irvin","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115997709757975542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}