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The Los Angeles Dodgers and pitcher Tony Gonsolin agreed to a two-year, $6.65 million contract Tuesday.
The deal buys out Gonsolin’s first two years of arbitration. The late-blooming righty is under team control through the 2026 season, making him one of baseball’s biggest bargains.
An All-Star for the first time in 2022, Gonsolin finished 16-1 record with 2.14 ERA and 0.87 WHIP. He was the Dodgers’ most consistent starter until suffering a forearm strain in August, which led to him pitching just 3.1 innings the remainder of the season. His campaign ended in a brief 1.1-inning outing in the Dodgers’ NLDS loss to the San Diego Padres.
The injury led to Gonsolin working on strength training this offseason in hopes of staying healthy.
“Just trying to get stronger over the offseason, get everything feeling good, feeling right. Doing a little mechanical changes to try and stay healthy all year and that’s the goal, to stay healthy all year and let the results show for themselves,” Gonsolin said earlier this month.
The Dodgers will go into the 2023 season thin in the rotation. Gonsolin is slated as their third starter behind Julio Urias and Clayton Kershaw, with the latter having his own recent history of injuries. Kershaw has started just 22 games each of the last two seasons due to extended stints on the injured list.
Injury concerns Dustin May and Noah Syndergaard round out a high-ceiling-low-floor starting five in Los Angeles.
