The postseason Dodgers are no strangers to quirky bullpen management — just ask Clayton Kershaw — but they’ve generally entered October with a reliable closer.
Kenley Jansen was the staple of the Dodgers’ bullpen for years, and he was generally the guy Dave Roberts could turn the ball over to in the ninth inning. Since Jansen has moved on to the Braves, the Dodgers have found the closing role to be a bit of a void. They acquired Craig Kimbrel for A.J. Pollock before the season, hoping he would recapture prime form, but Kimbrel didn’t notch a one-run save until August and he blew five saves in the regular season.
For the Dodgers, that simply isn’t good enough, and they’ve been holding their version of tryouts down the stretch. Los Angeles had the first seed in the NL locked up relatively early in the season, so it gave Roberts some room to experiment.
Twelve different Dodgers have saves on the year, and the Dodgers’ last eight saves have come from eight different pitchers. So will they rotate who closes? Or will they try to stick with someone consistently in the playoffs?
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Who is the Dodgers’ closer?
Even the Dodgers aren’t sure who is going to close out games this year, and Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman seems to be completely comfortable with that.
“The most important thing is we feel like we have a number of guys that can handle the moment and have the stuff to do it,” Friedman said heading into Tuesday’s NLDS Game 1 against the Padres, per Dodgers Insider.
Here’s a look at every Dodger who has recorded a save this season:
| Pitcher | Saves | Blown Saves | ERA |
| Craig Kimbrel | 22 | 5 | 3.75 |
| Daniel Hudson | 5 | 1 | 2.22 |
| Brusdar Graterol | 4 | 1 | 3.26 |
| Evan Phillips | 2 | 2 | 1.14 |
| David Price | 2 | 2 | 2.45 |
| Chris Martin | 2 | 1 | 1.46 |
| Alex Vesia | 1 | 2 | 2.15 |
| Yency Alamonte | 1 | 1 | 1.02 |
| Justin Bruihl | 1 | 1 | 3.80 |
| Tommy Kahnle | 1 | 0 | 2.84 |
| Andre Jackson | 1 | 0 | 1.86 |
| Jake Reed | 1 | 0 | 1.93 |
The Dodgers were rotating through different pitchers at the end of the year. Beginning on Aug. 30, Reed, Kimbrel, Bruihl, Martin, Jackson, Kahnle, Price, and Graterol all picked up saves in succession with no repeats, making it eight straight saves coming from different pitchers.
The Dodgers had the second-best bullpen in baseball in ERA, posting an earned run average of 2.87. Only the Astros were better at 2.80.
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Some of the pitchers on this list, of course, won’t even make the postseason roster. Kimbrel himself may well be on the bubble, with Phillips, Graterol, Vesia, Martin, Alamonte, and Kahnle as presumed bullpen locks.
With that in mind, the Dodgers may well let their closer emerge organically. If it’s based purely on “stuff” it could be Graterol. If it’s based on performance in late-inning situations, Phillips makes sense. However, in the playoffs, it will likely have to be situational, as the team’s trust in Kimbrel was clearly already shaken down the stretch.
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