sent Gavin Lux to the Cincinnati Reds<\/a>. A year earlier, the club acquired Hope and promising young pitcher Jackson Ferris from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for infielder Michael Busch and right-hander Yency Almonte, who recently returned to the Dodgers on a minor league contract.<\/p>\nFerris, who pitched 1-2\/3 scoreless innings in his second Cactus League start Saturday in the Dodgers\u2019 7-6 split-squad loss to the Texas Rangers at Surprise Stadium, noticed the contrast going from the Cubs to the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was different,\u201d Ferris said last month at his locker at Camelback Ranch. \u201cIt was honestly a breath of fresh air. Getting to know these coaches, they just understand exactly what they wanted for me and how they were going to go about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was cool to see how different things were. The Cubs [are] a great organization, good minor league system and everything, it was crazy to see how different the Cubs are from the Dodgers. The Dodgers are just as good, if not better, at everything in the minor leagues and in the big leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferris arrived at Cubs minor league camp in early January 2024, ready to get to work. A few days later, he was surprised when the team told him he had been traded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely wasn\u2019t expecting it after only throwing like 55-ish innings in my first year and doing well,\u201d Ferris said. \u201cSo, I didn\u2019t really know how to react. The Cubs coaches were talking highly of the Dodgers coaches, so then I was pretty excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferris credits the Dodgers for being more detail-oriented than the Cubs and helping him improve as a pitcher.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my first year of pro ball, so maybe it was just like being a high schooler, I didn\u2019t necessarily get a whole lot of coaching,\u201d Ferris said of his time with the Cubs. \u201cI\u2019d say it was more like, \u2018Go out there and let\u2019s just see how you do in your first year.\u2019 Whereas whenever I came here, they studied my throw, everything and it was like, \u2018Here, we think these drills are going to help you,\u2019 and we just kind of took off in our first year of being here.\u201d<\/p>\n
That season, Ferris posted a 3.20 ERA across 27 starts between high-A Great Lakes and double-A Tulsa, earning minor league pitcher of the year honors from the organization. Last year, Ferris logged a 3.86 ERA across 26 games and 126 innings at double-A Tulsa.<\/p>\n
This year Ferris could be knocking on the door of a big-league promotion. He\u2019s impressed through his first two Cactus League starts, with just four baserunners and no runs over 2-2\/3 innings, while working with a versatile five-pitch mix that features a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a \u201cbullet slider,\u201d a straight changeup and a 12-to-6 curveball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like Jackson,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said recently. \u201cI like the player. He\u2019s a good kid. A lot of talent. I think for me, it\u2019s just trying to harness his arsenal. It\u2019s a good fastball. He needs to continue to get ahead, be able to put hitters away with the secondary pitches, be efficient with his pitches per inning, but I like Jackson.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> PHOENIX \u2014 The way the Dodgers have spent money in recent years, one area that often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[227885,479,4279,227886,227883,137975,18293,227884,176916,363,472,11258,51804,99,447,2394,17438],"class_list":["post-499051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-breath","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-dodgers","tag-eduardo-quintero","tag-ferris","tag-fresh-air","tag-last-year","tag-mike-sirota","tag-minor-league-contract","tag-mlb","tag-no","tag-prospect","tag-scoreless-innings","tag-sports","tag-trade","tag-year","tag-zyhir-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}