The Dodgers didn’t do much at all to add to their starting rotation this offseason, and they didn’t need to.
Boasting one of the most dominant pitching staffs in not just their own division, but all of baseball, the Dodgers enter the 2026 season with a plethora of rotational options. The quartet of All-Stars is cemented at the top, but following is a free-for-all of young talent vying to either get their first real shot as a starter or to make themselves known again after their 2025 seasons were wiped away due to injury, i.e. Gavin Stone and River Ryan.
With Roki Sasaki penciled into the rotation, the team already flaunts a dynamic five-man rotation, but, as Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register tweets, the Dodgers will open up the 2026 season with a six-man rotation. Plunkett notes that this will allow pitchers such as Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to maintain their one start per week routine.
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Old friend Chris Taylor is headed back to the Angels for the 2026 season, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Heyman did not specify whether it was a major league deal or a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.
After being released by the Dodgers during the 2025 season, Taylor played in 30 games with the Angels, slashing .179/.278/.321 with two home runs and 10 RBI while posting -0.1 fWAR.
The Dodgers needed to do one thing before wrapping up their offseason agenda, and that they did on Thursday by bringing back Kiké Hernández for the 2026 season, writes Sonja Chen of MLB.com.
Hernández, like Phillips (Tommy John surgery) and righty reliever Brock Stewart (shoulder surgery), will be an in-season reinforcement for the back-to-back World Series champions once he returns to full health. His signing is one of the finishing touches on a Dodgers roster that kept its core intact while bringing in star power (Kyle Tucker and Edwin Díaz) to address its biggest holes.
For the first time in 19 years, Clayton Kershaw will not be with the Dodgers in Arizona, and Dave Roberts has already noticed a different vibe without him in the clubhouse, per Plunkett.
“When we get to spring training at Camelback and not seeing his locker where it’s been for 17 years, 18 years, it’s gonna be different,” said Dave Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager for the last 10 years of Kershaw’s career. “The presence, seeing No. 22 out there early, doing sprints, seeing him in the weight room, knowing it’s Kershaw Day (when he pitched), not having that – it’s different.”
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