Dodgers Team News

Dodgers and Caleb Ferguson Not Seeing Eye to Eye on IL Stint

Filed under more unneeded drama, it appears the Dodgers and pitcher Caleb Ferguson are not seeing eye to eye on the hurler’s status. In a recent LA Times article, Ferguson expressed frustration with the team over how he’s been handled this season.

“I went through a longer rehab process than what I thought — and not really by choice, but that was what the team thought was best for me. I did it. I shut my mouth and did it. And I feel like we’re kind of going back on with that.”



First, the left-hander — who underwent Tommy John surgery for the second time in his career late in 2020 — was built back up slowly during spring training of this year after missing all of 2021. As the team headed out to open the regular season in Colorado, Ferguson stayed back in Arizona to continue his ramp up. After he was ready, in his own eyes at least, the team optioned him to Triple-A to continue working.

Save for an emergency stint back on the active roster in May, Ferguson spent most of the first two months of the season at AAA. In June, a healthy Ferguson was called back up to LA and spent nearly two weeks finally working his way back into the mix in the bullpen.

Then he complained of forearm soreness and the Dodgers acted swiftly in placing him on the injured list once again.

According to Jack Harris of the Times, Caleb “wasn’t too thrilled” about the decision. From there, the pitcher vented his frustrations.

“There’s just been a lot of miscommunication over the last two and a half months. Yeah, I’m just kind of tired of the miscommunication of it.”

“There was a lot of things in rehab that kind of got changed around and jerked around,” Ferguson added. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of people involved in it. Everybody has their own voice to speak on it. I don’t know. It’s kind of a hard question without trying to be [a jerk] and call a bunch of people out.”

While the team’s reasoning for placing Ferguson on IL feels justified at first glance, manager Dave Roberts also let on that the league enacting a pitcher limit on the active roster also factored into the decision making, according to the Times.

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Put it all together and it seems like the 26-year-old is at his wit’s end with his handling by and communication with the team.

“I’ve had some conversations. Some conversations I feel like I get my point across, and other conversations I feel like it goes in one ear and out the other. There’s a couple people that I feel are in my corner that truly mean it, and there’s a couple people that are business people. That’s kind of it.”

Altogether, Ferguson has appeared in only 6 games at the big league level in 2022, tossing 5 scoreless innings along the way. He’s allowed 6 earned runs over 10 AAA appearances this year. He pitched to Mookie Betts and Zach McKinstry at Dodger Stadium on Saturday and by all accounts, he looks ready to go. But will the Dodgers see it that way?

Staff Writer

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