Former Dodgers Pitcher Reveals What Makes LA Pitching Staff so Good at Revitalizing Careers

Over the years, the Dodgers have become known as one of the best teams for players to sign with to help revitalize their careers. It's common knowledge around the league, and they have a fairly high success rate.

Of course, there will be some players whom the team can't help. But for the most part, Los Angeles has been able to help players turn their careers back around. 

Former Dodgers pitcher Tyler Anderson spoke about this with Mike DiGiovanna of the LA Times, and specifically went into what makes Los Angeles so good at revitalizing players' careers. 

“They’re just better at weeding out what works and what doesn’t work, you know?” said Anderson. “Some guys need help with pitch grips, some need help with mechanics, some need help with mental stuff. They’re good at figuring out which guy needs what. There’s no secret recipe. It’s just good, hard, quantitative work. They do the [stuff] that matters.”

Per Tyler Anderson via The Los Angeles Times

Anderson experienced the best season of his career while with the Dodgers, leading to him signing a lucrative contract as a free agent with the Los Angeles Angels. He posted an ERA of 2.57 over 30 games with the Dodgers, giving him his only career season with an ERA lower than 3.50.

The work that L.A. did for him involved showing him a different method of how to pitch.

It has become known as the Dodgers magic, and almost every season they have a new reclamation project. Los Angeles is deliberate in how they go about everything, and it's shown in the on-the-field successes.

“I’ve been in other organizations that would look at the Rapsodo [device] and be like, ‘No, this is no good, I don’t like what the tech says about this pitch,’ ” Anderson said. “Because the numbers were probably about the same for my two-seam changeup as they were for the four-seam changeup. But [the Dodgers coaches] would stand in the batter’s box, watching from a hitter’s perspective. They’d watch from behind the catcher, from the side, from every angle to see how the ball is spinning, and they were like, ‘OK, we like this one.’ They’re putting more thought into it. The devil’s in the details, and they pay attention to all the details.”

Per Tyler Anderson via The Los Angeles Times

L.A. attacks details head-on, and they don't shy away from the little things. It's helped them find success over the years, and they are credited with being one of the best run teams in baseball.