GLENDALE, Ariz. — If you’re the Dodgers, you have a pitching staff – and a shadow pitching staff.
Every year, they seem to have a handful of pitchers rehabbing from surgery, often signed to contracts despite their injury in the hopes of them returning at some point in the future – call it the Danny Duffy scholarship.
Duffy was acquired at the trade deadline in 2021 despite having a flexor tendon injury. He was unable to pitch in 2021, underwent flexor repair surgery that fall and re-signed for the 2022 season. The Dodgers paid him $3 million to rehab last season but he never made it back to the big leagues, pitching a total of 6⅔ innings in the Dodgers’ organization on a rehab assignment last season. The Dodgers declined a $7 million option in his contract last fall and Duffy signed a minor-league deal with the Texas Rangers, going to their camp this spring as a non-roster invitee.
This year’s class includes Daniel Hudson (knee surgery) and Jimmy Nelson (multiple surgeries), who might be ready to pitch at the start of the season or shortly after, Alex Reyes (labrum surgery), who is expected to be available at mid-season, and Walker Buehler (Tommy John surgery), Blake Treinen (rotator cuff and labrum surgery) and JP Feyereisen (same) each with varying odds of pitching before the end of the 2023 season.
Nelson has tenure in this group, having endured a litany of challenges over the past six years – a serious shoulder injury in 2017, back surgery in 2020, Tommy John surgery and flexor tendon repair in 2021 and, just for good measure, a hospital stay this past winter to treat a case of bacterial pneumonia.
“The only other option is you stop. And I’m not stopping,” said the 33-year-old Nelson who will be on the Dodgers’ payroll for a fourth consecutive season but has thrown a total of 29 innings for them, all in 2021.
“I’ve put in too much work, too much sacrifice. This is the best I’ve felt in six years.”
Nelson has been a “full…
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