You might have heard the Dodgers traded for an All-Star lefty at the Trade Deadline. We're here to talk about him.
No, no. Not Tarik Skubal. The other guy.
We're here to talk about Kris Bubic, L.A.'s trade target in, let's just say, a slightly less heralded move than the Skubal blockbuster.
Bubic, who came over from the Royals, is on the shelf until late August or early September due to left shoulder soreness. And he wasn't exactly pitching his best before he went on the injured list, with a 4.11 ERA in nine starts. So why did the back-to-back champs target him?
Well, if Bubic can get healthy, he does offer some upside for the Dodgers, and that's all that really matters, since they didn't have to give up much to get him. Bubic was an All-Star just last season. Maybe he can even pitch his way onto L.A.'s postseason roster. Presumably he'll be coming out of the bullpen with the Dodgers, who'll ideally be running out some combination of Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow in the starting rotation come playoff time. The last time Bubic was in a relief role, in 2024, he was excellent.
So let's try to figure this out. Here are three reasons why Bubic could help the Dodgers down the stretch.
1) Bubic's relief numbers were really good
Here's how Bubic ranks in a bunch of pitching categories for each season since he broke out a couple of years ago.
Check out the "Pitching" section in that left-hand column. When Bubic was in the Royals' bullpen in 2024, he was really good at everything.
Bubic didn't throw enough innings to qualify for the Statcast leaderboards (30 1/3 innings over 27 relief appearances), but if he had, he would've ranked nearly the top of the league in basically every category.
Bubic's expected ERA as a reliever, for example, was 1.86. (That's what his ERA deserved to be based on his strikeouts, walks and quality of contact allowed.) That mark was third best in the Majors behind only Mason Miller and Kirby Yates.
And look at those strikeout-to-walk numbers. Bubic's 32% strikeout rate vs. his 4% walk rate out of the 'pen was impeccable.
Bubic was inducing some of the softest contact in the Majors (83.4 mph average exit velocity allowed), and keeping that contact on the ground (60% ground-ball rate). That's a winning formula, if he can go back to the bullpen with the Dodgers and find it again.
2) He has out pitches for righties and lefties
Since there's no such thing as a LOOGY anymore, even lefty relievers have to be able to get out both right-handed and left-handed hitters these days. Bubic has the out pitches in his arsenal to do that, especially out of the bullpen.
Facing righties, he has his changeup, which has been quite good even this year. Even though he hasn't pitched since mid-May, Bubic still has a 90th-percentile run value on offspeed pitches for the season. His changeup was worth +5 runs prevented at the time he got hurt, which was tied for second best in baseball.
As for lefty-lefty matchups, Bubic should be able to rely heavily on his fastball-sweeper combo if he's pitching in relief for the Dodgers. That's what he did in 2024, when those two offerings accounted for 90% of the pitches he threw to lefties. (When he's in a starting role, he mixes in more sinkers and regular sliders, but a simpler repertoire works better in short stints.)
The sweeper is the key pitch there, since there's nothing harder for a left-handed hitter to handle than a big lefty breaking ball that's sweeping away from him. Bubic's is a pretty good one, too, which breaks 14 inches from side to side. If he goes to the bullpen, he should get a bit of a velocity bump, too, and a sharper sweeper could be even more effective.
3) There's lots of movement in his arsenal
Bubic throws four pitches with above-average movement. Specifically, above-average vertical movement.
His four-seam fastball rises. His changeup, sweeper and slider all drop. (His sinker is pretty average from a movement standpoint, but it's a necessary foil for his four-seamer.)
Getting good carry on the heater and good depth on the breaking and offspeed stuff is a nice Step 1. Now Bubic just needs to locate those pitches like he was locating them in 2024.
That season, he was landing his pitches in the strike zone 55% of the time, compared to just 47% of the time this year. He was hitting the edges of the zone 46% of the time, but this year that's down to under 42%. With worse locations this season, he hasn't been getting as much chase as he was before (29% chase rate in 2026 vs. 35% in 2024).
But he has the solid building blocks to be an effective reliever. That's why he was worth the Dodgers taking a flier on.