Part of the spring training ritual is figuring out which pitchers are a little behind the curve, and who might not be ready for the start of the season. It’s inevitable and happens with every team.
The first domino for the Dodgers fell on Thursday, when Blake Snell at a team community event at Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach said his offseason throwing program has been limited after a taxing final few months of 2025. That puts his readiness for opening day in question.
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This shouldn’t be a surprise with Snell, a classic excellent-when-healthy pitcher who rarely pitches a full season. He has pitched at least 130 innings twice in his 10 major league seasons (2018, 2023), and won a Cy Young Award in both years.
Don’t take this as a knock on Snell. The Dodgers knew what they were getting into when they signed Snell to a five-year contract. Just like they knew who they were getting when they traded for and extended Tyler Glasnow, who has pitched 100 innings three times in his 10 seasons. Both Snell and Glasnow were healthy down the stretch last season and into October, and the Dodgers rode their rotation to a second straight championship.
Last year was the idealization of the Dodgers’ annual goal, to have the big names all healthy in October. This strategy also requires the depth necessary to fill in the gaps for the six months of the regular season. To that end, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman on the Dodgers Territory podcast Thursday said of the 2026 roster, “It’s the deepest and best collection of arms I’ve ever been around.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan, and Roki Sasaki are the top six on the depth chart, but there are plenty of other starting pitchers potentially available as well.
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Gavin Stone and River Ryan are back after rehabbing from surgeries and missing all of 2025. Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius have pitched in hybrid roles in the majors, and could start if needed. Landon Knack has another year of options to fill in when called upon.
If recent history is any guide, the Dodgers will need all of these pitchers, and likely more, in 2026.
Dustin May and Clayton Kershaw were second and third on the 2025 Dodgers in innings pitched during the regular season. May was dealt at the trade deadline, and Kershaw pitched only twice in 17 postseason games. In 2024, Stone and Glasnow were the only Dodgers to top 90 innings and neither were available in the postseason.
At least seven Dodgers pitchers have started 10 games in each of the last five seasons, and at least 10 Dodgers have started five games in each of the last four seasons. In each of the last two years, only two Dodgers started 20 games during the regular season.
Year
Starters
20 starts
10 starts
5 starts
Top 6 starts
2025
17
2
7
11
116
2024
17
2
8
10
112
2023
17
4
8
10
111
2022
12
4
7
10
131
2021
19
3
7
8
128
Those current top six on the 2026 depth chart combined for 93 starts last season. In the last five seasons, the most the top six starters combined for is 131 starts, with an average of 120 starts per year. That still leaves a lot of other starts to account for. But the Dodgers are used to that.