Dodgers Team News

Dodgers Prospect Josiah Gray Feels LA Gave Him Direction Where Reds Organization Didn’t

Last week, Dodgers pitching prospect Josiah Gray was kind enough to spend some time with us to talk about his hopes for the 2020 season. Moreover, he also shared some insider information about what’s going on at that alternate site of 60-man roster pool players.

But a real highlight was his insight on what changed for him in terms of the organizational direction as he went from the Cincinnati Reds to Los Angeles. 



Dodgers Pitching Prospect Josiah Gray Gives the Inside Scoop about the USC Alternate Site, & More!

Of course, Gray was part of the deal that sent Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp to Cincinnati after the 2018 season. The 22-year-old was the 72nd overall pick in the draft earlier that year but wasn’t an overly well-known commodity amongst baseball circles.

He made only 12 rookie ball appearances with the Reds before coming to the Dodgers. With LA, he saw an immediate difference from the top down.

We’ve known the Dodgers are sort of a forward-thinking organization that is willing to do whatever they need to do to make every player better … So coming over here, compared to Cincinnati… I was blessed to be drafted by them, but I think over there it was really no direction for me … they didn’t really know what to do just yet.

While Gray did fine in his short work with Cincy in his pro debut (2.92 ERA over 12 starts), things progressed quickly for him once he hit the LA farm system. The Dodgers took an aggressive approach with the righty as they moved him up through three levels in 2019. Importantly, he responded well totaling a 2.28 ERA in 130 innings across the three stops.

That success can be attributed to day one at Camelback Ranch, something that likely wouldn’t have been the same with the Reds.

Getting over here for my first spring training definitely helped me out — learning what kind of pitcher I am. I learned how to use my pitches… ‘this is why I do this’ and seeing the way I release the ball. The certain small things that the Dodgers organization has helped me with that I don’t think Cincinnati was doing to the finer points when I was drafted … that was the vast difference I saw.

Jojo is another high-quality arm pounding on the door to the big leagues. Thankfully he’s doing that with the Dodgers.

Have you subscribed to our YouTube Channel yet? Subscribe and hit that notification bell to stay up to date on all the latest Dodgers news, exclusive interviews, live streams, and more!

NEXT: Justin Turner’s Unexpected Defensive Resurgence Stands Out in 2020

Clint Pasillas

Clint Pasillas has been writing, blogging, and podcasting about the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2008. Under Clint's leadership as the Lead Editor, Dodgers Nation has grown into one of the most read baseball sites in the world with millions of unique visitors per month. Find him online on Twitter/X or his YouTube channel!

3 Comments

  1. Let’s take a look

    Kershaw May Urias Stripling

    Price Wood and the projects that have failed

    When you got

    Gonsolin White Gray and many more why are we freaking dumpster diving.

    You give them direction great I love that. The future is bright but not promoting them to the show is dumb.

    Look around the league you will see ex Dodger pitchers performing well and or holding thier ground way better than our dumpster diving.

    The Dodgers history has and will always be connected on how to build pitchers.

    We can’t sign all the studs for 360 million dollars but I sure would like to keep
    Belli And Seager a lot longer as they are game changers

    Kershaw talents got wasted with bad management on the past and now we got the tail end Kershaw. How great and how much more useful it is for those kids to learn off of him in how he battles due to regression of his skills.

    Now that is building and saving that cash from dumpster diving to take care of Belli and Seager.

  2. The Dodgers especially with Kasten’s business plan to use “Home Grown Talent” to control costs has spent more money and thought than most teams on making their minor league system as innovative as any team in baseball.
    Its not “Luck” that the Dodgers have draft picks that are lower due to their winning percentage but continue to develop into great rookies that are prepared when they get to the Majors. Because of the wealth of talent on the Minor League Teams the Dodgers can occasionally reach for a player that might have the potential for a huge upside but might not make it if they do not develop. Players like Jaren Kendall that looks to be a bust but you have to gamble as projecting if a young player will be great is still a guessing game to some extent. This draft they risked not signing a dynamic high school player Jake Vogel and ended up to many pundits surprise signing him.
    The Future rotation for the Dodgers with Buehler, Urias, May, Stripling & with the addition of Gonsolin, Gonzalez, White, Santana, Gray and others fighting for a spot is exciting to contemplate.

  3. I was hoping that we would see him this year. That was a great trade as was the one where we sent the sore armed pitchers to Atlanta. Maybe Atlanta would be interested in Alex Wood.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button