The Los Angeles Dodgers and their bottomless pitching infirmary made another move this week. Andrew Friedman acquired left-handed reliever Eric Lauer from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for cash considerations, with a player to be named later potentially heading back to Toronto. The deal was triggered by the Dodgers placing right-hander Brusdar Graterol on the 60-day injured list.
Lauer is the kind of move that does not generate Twitter buzz but absolutely matters in October. He is 30 years old, a former starter who has converted to multi-inning relief, and he has eaten 38.1 innings for the Blue Jays this season with a 3.05 ERA and a 9.4 strikeouts-per-nine rate. He throws a heavy four-seam at 91 with a slow curve and a cutter that handles lefty bats. He is exactly the kind of arm the Dodgers love to deploy in October when the bullpen has to bridge three or four innings.
The Graterol news is the real story. He has been on and off the injured list for most of three calendar years. The latest setback is reportedly shoulder discomfort that has not responded to rest, and the 60-day designation suggests his return before September is not the working assumption. Graterol has been one of the most talented and most fragile relievers in baseball since the Dodgers acquired him from Minnesota in the Mookie Betts trade. This year may be the year the Dodgers finally accept the math.
For the Blue Jays, the trade is the latest sign that they are working as quietly toward a deadline reshuffle as a team that is currently a half game out of the AL East lead can. Toronto general manager Ross Atkins did not get anything close to a top prospect in return for Lauer, but he cleared a 40-man roster spot and moved a pending free agent for cash. That is small-fry mover behavior.
The bigger Jays story is what comes next. Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Daulton Varsho all have contracts that expire or hit decision points in the next 18 months. The roster around them is uneven. Lauer is the first chip off the board. He is unlikely to be the last.
The Dodgers’ rotation, meanwhile, remains a marvel of pitching engineering and crisis management. Walker Buehler is back. Tyler Glasnow has been healthy all year. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is throwing the best baseball of his MLB career with a 2.41 ERA. Shohei Ohtani has been throwing live bullpens and is on track to make his 2026 mound debut by late June. Add Lauer in long relief, and the Dodgers’ staff is in a different tier from the rest of the National League.
The trade also clears a 40-man spot for one of Los Angeles’s top pitching prospects, Justin Wrobleski, who has dominated at Triple-A Oklahoma City and could be the next call-up. Friedman’s roster always feels like an octopus. Every move clears space for another.
The Dodgers are 35-19 and have the second-best run differential in baseball. They are pulling away in the NL West. Adding Lauer does not change that. It is the kind of small move that does change what happens in a Game 4 NLCS bullpen game in October. Which is when the Dodgers will be glad they made it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
