The Los Angeles Dodgers avoided arbitration with Brusdar Graterol by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $2.8 million, even after missing the entire 2025 season and struggling for availability since 2024. Now, after a back flare-up during a minor-league rehab ou
For the Los Angeles Dodgers. the offseason decision to keep Brusdar Graterol on a one-year deal was supposed to be the calm part of a rough story. It was worth $2.8 million, agreed to as the Dodgers avoided arbitration. It was also. at the time. a move that didn’t quite line up with what fans had been seeing on the field.
Graterol missed the entire 2025 season, and he has totaled less than eight innings pitched for the Dodgers since the start of the 2024 season. With that kind of track record, the “obvious call” would have been to non-tender him. But the Dodgers didn’t. They decided to give him another chance.
That decision was still alive when Graterol started a minor-league rehab assignment at the start of May. Then everything shifted over the weekend. The 27-year-old experienced a back flare-up during his outing on May 12. and the Dodgers expect him to miss a considerable amount of time after this latest setback.
At this point, surgery is being considered, and it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where Graterol is pitching again for the Dodgers by the end of the season.
That’s the central frustration for Los Angeles: the timing and the recurring nature of the setback. The bullpen has carried Graterol through enough of his seasons to make his value clear—especially once he found his footing. Since being acquired by the Dodgers ahead of the 2020 season, his role has steadily grown. In 2023, he fully emerged as a high-leverage option for Dave Roberts, posting a 1.20 ERA in 68 appearances.
The human side of all this is straightforward: when a pitcher is needed, health becomes the real currency. The Dodgers have kept paying in hopes that Graterol could get back to the version that made them lean on him late in games.
But the sequence of facts is starting to look like a warning label. A one-year, $2.8 million agreement meant the Dodgers were betting on recovery and return. Yet the injuries keep arriving—first in a way that cost him the entire 2025 season. then in limited availability since the start of 2024. and now again with a back flare-up during a rehab outing on May 12.
The Dodgers are never really short of money. which explains why they’ve held on to him for as long as they have. If Graterol could get healthy. the hope was that he could turn back into the high-leverage option he was for the team in 2023. But by the end of the season. he’ll be three years removed from that reality. and it feels like the experiment needs to be over.
There’s another practical turn to the story. Because Graterol is set to become a free agent, the Dodgers won’t have to make any choice like this again in the winter. And no, there isn’t any scenario where Andrew Friedman and Co. should consider him an option for the bullpen in 2027.
A reunion is still possible—just not on the same terms. Assuming Graterol is recovering from surgery, it would make sense for LA to keep him around on a minor-league deal. The difference would be that there wouldn’t be any real expectation for him to occupy a bullpen slot next season.
Right now, though, the only certainty is what the May 12 setback has already changed. Another door closes in the shortest possible window of time—and Los Angeles is left with the same question it’s been circling since the numbers stopped matching the hope.
Brusdar Graterol Los Angeles Dodgers arbitration one-year deal $2.8 million back flare-up May 12 rehab assignment surgery considered bullpen