Shohei Ohtani is officially a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. A team that won 100 games in 2023 with a roster that already had Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman just landed potentially the best player to ever play baseball. This team is going to be loaded.
Yet, the Dodgers Death Star won’t be fully complete until Shohei Ohtani, the pitcher, returns to the mound in 2025 after receiving a second Tommy John surgery just a couple of months ago.
He’ll be Ohtani, the hitter, in the L.A. lineup for the entire 2024 season, but he won’t be dazzling on the mound just yet.
With that in mind, which players could surround Ohtani in the Dodgers’ rotation for the 2025 season?
L.A. Dodgers’ in-house options
The Dodgers projected rotation as of right now on Roster Resource consists of Walker Buehler, who will be returning from his own Tommy John surgery, Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, and Emmet Sheehan, who have combined for 43 starts at the big-league level, and Ryan Yarbrough.
Buehler and Yarbrough will be free agents after the 2024 season, leaving Miller, Pepiot, and Sheehan as three likely players to collect starts in 2025 alongside Ohtani. Of course, this depends on their production in 2024.
Looking down on the farm, other options include Nick Frasso, the Dodgers’ No. 4 prospect, who made four starts in Triple-A and held a 3.26 ERA.
There’s also No. 5 prospect Gavin Stone, who made his debut in 2023 and made eight appearances (four starts), holding a 9.00 ERA across 31 innings.
Landon Knack, ranked No. 9, made 10 starts with Oklahoma City in Triple-A and held a 2.93 ERA. Each of these three prospects will have a shot to make the rotation, but there won’t be room for all three.
Potential 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers pitching rotation
| Pitcher | GS | W | L | ERA | K | BB | WHIP |
| Shohei Ohtani* | 23 | 10 | 5 | 3.14 | 167 | 55 | 1.061 |
| Walker Buehler** | 12 | 6 | 3 | 4.02 | 58 | 17 | 1.292 |
| Ryan Pepiot | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2.14 | 38 | 5 | 0.762 |
| Bobby Miller | 22 | 11 | 4 | 3.76 | 119 | 32 | 1.102 |
| Emmet Sheehan | 11 | 4 | 1 | 4.92 | 64 | 26 | 1.193 |
| Nick Frasso (AAA OKC, Tulsa) | 25 | 4 | 6 | 4.16 | 107 | 31 | 1.269 |
Technically, Clayton Kershaw isn’t an in-house option since he is currently a free agent, but we’ll include him here anyway. It’s tough to see Kershaw signing up for the ’25 season at this point in time, but hey, maybe being around Ohtani (if he comes back in 2024) will reinvigorate him.
We mentioned that Yarbrough and Buehler will be free agents after the 2024 season, and while it’s tough to see the Dodgers bringing back Yarbrough for the 2025 season, Buehler should be in the mix.
It will depend on the development of some of their young arms, what other moves the Dodgers make, and what kind of price tag Buehler will be commanding, but he has proven to be nails in the postseason with a cumulative 2.94 ERA in 15 starts.
Ohtani has yet to play postseason ball, and having someone with not only the experience, but the success Buehler has shown in October on the roster could be invaluable to a team that is all in on winning every single World Series for the next 10 seasons.
Los Angeles Dodgers free agent pursuits
With those deferrals in Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract, the club will be saving nearly $24 million against the luxury tax thresholds, per Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.
Instead of just being paid $70 million per season, the two-way wonder will be receiving $2 million each season for the next 10 years with $680 million of his contract being deferred to the following 10 years.
Ohtani is also expected to make $50 million next season in advertising revenue according to that SI article, so he’ll be fine.
With that being the case, the Dodgers are still very much in on the top pitcher on the market, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The right-hander was projected to receive a nine-year deal worth $225 million by MLB Trade Rumors earlier this winter, which works out to $25 million per season.
How much did Ohtani save L.A.? The Dodgers could back up another truck of cash for Yamamoto and leave other teams wondering how they’ll ever compete with L.A.
Suppose they don’t end up getting Yamamoto. In that case, the free agent market next off-season is filled with top-end starters like Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber and Tyler Glasnow, who are all potentially available via trade this off-season, as well as Robbie Ray, Chris Sale, and Zack Wheeler.
It’s hard to imagine the Dodgers not landing at least one of those seven pitchers before the 2025 season.
The Shohei Ohtani wrinkle for the Los Angeles Dodgers
With most starting pitchers, they make a start every fifth day with four days of rest in between. With Ohtani, he pitches every sixth day, which will either lead to Los Angeles needing six starters and leaning on their young arms that are yet unproven, or some tricky roster moves that give them a starter when needed.
Now and again there will be an off day throughout the course of the season that will eat up one of those days of rest, but more often than not there are five games in between starts, which will likely necessitate a reliable sixth starter option for the Dodgers.
With that in mind, the projected starting rotation for the 2025 season looks like this: Ohtani, Buehler (who has re-signed), Yamamoto, Miller, Pepiot, and one of the three rotation options currently in Triple-A.
Los Angeles could also end up signing another one of the rotation options on the market next winter, but that may depend on how the 2024 season shakes out.
If teams want to win a World Series sometime in the next decade, they may want to make a push for the 2024 season before Ohtani comes back, because this team won’t be fully operational until 2025.