Walker Buehler seemed to be coming down the stretch of his 13-month rehab from Tommy John surgery, but the recovery process was taking longer than he anticipated.
But Buehler is also going to be a free agent after 2024, and with Kershaw and Urias hitting free agency this winter, Gonsolin missing next season, May missing at least a chunk of next season and the Dodgers likely declining Lance Lynn’s $18-million option, Buehler will be needed as much in 2024 as he would have been this October.
“I checked a lot of the boxes that I wanted to — I got to compete and go out [on rehab] and did it pretty quickly — and I’m proud of that,” Buehler said. “But at the end of the day, I just wasn’t recovering the way I would need to to make the kind of impact here, and also an impact that’s worth any of the risk of coming back.“I kind of talked to everyone involved, my agents, the organization, my family, and this was just kind of the right thing to do.
Buehler, a two-time All-Star who had his first elbow ligament replacement surgery after the Dodgers drafted him in the first round out of Vanderbilt in 2015, stressed that he did not have any kind of physical setback. His fastball was crisp in his rehab start, in which he struck out two of the six batters he faced.
“Physically, I felt really good,” Buehler said. “Just the recovery part of it is tough. I think the intensity of a [big-league] game versus any sort of live [batting-practice session] or going to triple-A or whatever and not feeling great … “Thinking about trying to pitch in a playoff game and be on a roster and take a spot where I can’t come back as fast as I want to, I think a lot of the puzzle pieces worked, and a few of them didn’t.”
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