9 Former Dodgers Without Jobs as Spring Training Begins
6./7./8. Zack Greinke, Rich Hill, Noah Syndergaard
I'm gonna go ahead and group these three former Dodgers pitchers together because most of what I have to say about any of them applies to the entire trio.
They're all some combination of old (Rich Hill is 44, Zack Greinke is 40, Noah Syndergaard is the youngster at 31) and past their primes. And we're not just talking a little past their primes. We're talking full-on "why do teams keep giving this guy chances?" levels of past their prime.
Greinke's 5.06 ERA in 2023 was the best mark of any of them (5.44 for Hill, 6.50 for Syndergaard), and with their age/injury concerns, there's not much room for optimism that things will be looking up any time soon.
I get it, it's hard to find good pitching depth. And when you see guys who were once really good, it's easy to think "maybe they can turn it around for us." But really, how often does that work? There's a reason it's always a feel-good story when one former-great actually does manage to turn it around for a year or two at the end of their career. The typical result is a lot more disastrous.
At least one any maybe two or three of them will probably end up pitching in 2024, so be thankful that they won't be doing it for the Dodgers.