Shohei Ohtani to force Dodgers into Spring competition for 6th rotation spot

Shohei Ohtani to force Dodgers into Spring competition for 6th rotation spot originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are, once again, World Series favorites. Their lineup is one of the best in Major League Baseball, and with Shohei Ohtani coming into the year healthier than ever, there's plenty of optimism.

Ohtani is even set to join the rotation from the beginning of the season for the first time in a while. But they will need to manage his innings this season so as not to overwork him, making the sixth starter an actually important role for the Dodgers in 2026.

Thanks in part to Ohtani's return to the rotation, the Dodgers are now set, as Mike Axisa of CBS Sports notes, to have a spring competition for the sixth starter in 2026. There are four options, with one a clear favorite heading into Spring Training.

Shohei Ohtani's limitation sparks competition for Dodgers 6th rotation spot

"Yes, thatis No. 6 starter," Axisa writes. "The Dodgers use a full-time six-man rotation because Shohei Ohtani needs one to manage his workload."

While Ohtani's workload management is a big reason for the sixth starting job being important this spring, the injury uncertainty with Blake Snell is another reason why Los Angeles seriously needs to evaluate their sixth starter.

Entering 2026, Ohtani, Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki make up the main starters. But if Snell cannot go to begin the year, Emmett Sheehan will step in. That would leave four options for the sixth starter job.

Justin Wrobleski, Gavin Stone, River Ryan, and Kyle Hurt are the candidates Axisa identified, and of those four options to be the sixth, or even seventh starter, Wrobleski is the clear favorite.

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"I will say Wrobleski because a) he was pretty good last year and seems to have the trust of manager Dave Roberts, and b) he's the only one of the four candidates not coming back from major surgery," Axisa writes.

The Dodgers might not even need this sixth starter job if Snell is healthy. But, with the Dodgers rotation seemingly always banged up, knowing who their next man up is will be imperative to figure out this spring.

Ryan and Stone are great options for this role as well, but Wrobleski, being the lone option not coming off injury, is a huge plus for the Dodgers.

This spring competition is a great luxury for the Dodgers, as all of these depth starter options would be much higher in other teams' rotations.

But, thanks to Snell's injury, and Ohtani set to have his workload managed, the Dodgers need one of these pitchers, whether it's Wrobleski, Stone, Ryan, or Hurt, to have a good spring and earn a spot at the back-end of the rotation.

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