Julio Urias

Urias' 20 wins last season were three more than anyone else in MLB, and he got it done by posting a 21.1 K-BB% (eighth in NL) over 185.2 innings (seventh in NL) for a 106-win Dodgers team. The southpaw would go on to add 15 frames in the postseason, allowing four homers but also pitching to a 15:3 K:BB. Two of his four appearances in the playoffs came out of the bullpen, and of course he played hero in relief during the Dodgers' 2020 World Series run, perhaps leaving some lingering questions about his long-term role. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he eventually replaced Kenley Jansen in the closer role for the Dodgers, but for the time being Urias will continue on in the rotation. The training wheels are fully off and lefty will still be just 25 years old for most of the 2022 campaign.

Urias will forever be entrenched in the minds of Dodgers fans as the pitcher who earned the World Series save that broke the organization's 32-year championship drought. The outing was a fitting culmination to a dominant playoff run in which the southpaw earned four wins, allowed three earned runs and struck out 29 over 23 innings. Urias wasn't quite as effective in the regular season, but he nonetheless showed plenty of promise with a 3.27 ERA and 1.15 WHIP over 11 appearances (10 starts). His 20.1 K% was well below his career norm, but Urias succeeded by again limiting hard contact and keeping home runs to a minimum (0.82 HR/9 -- a tick above his stellar 0.68 HR/9 career mark). Now fully healthy entering his age-24 season, Urias will have a chance to blossom in the middle of the Los Angeles rotation. If he can build upon his postseason magic, Urias could achieve that long-anticipated breakout.

The shine of Urias' prospect status has faded, both due to results and his domestic battery situation that led to a suspension last season. He pitched just shy of 80 innings last year, most of them in relief with decent results in a hybrid role, but far from the expectations of him as he rapidly ascended from the minor leagues. The 79.1 innings marked the third-highest total of his pro career, so it is tough to picture him spending a full season in the rotation coming on the heels of an injury in 2018 and his usage in 2019. Still just 23, he has the repertoire to be a quality starting pitcher, but he needs to start building up his innings this year to shed the durability question marks. In 123 career MLB innings as a starter, he has a 3.66 ERA, 1.36 WHIP and 125:49 K:BB. That's a pretty fair projection, both the good and the bad, for what will hopefully be his first 100-plus inning season in the majors.

The long road back from anterior capsule surgery culminated in Urias making three relief appearances for the Dodgers in September and seven more appearances in the postseason. It's a small sample obviously, but the lefty's fastball velocity was right back up to where it was before the surgery, as was the swing and miss dominance (12:1 K:BB in 10.1 total innings with the big-league team). The Dodgers have made it clear that Urias will build back up as a starter in 2019. While we may be looking at 100 or so major-league innings from Urias in a best-case scenario, the per-inning numbers should be of extremely high quality. Remember that this is a player who was almost universally renowned as the top pitching prospect in the game at one point. He posted a 25% strikeout rate and 3.17 FIP in 77 innings with the Dodgers as a 19-year-old in 2016. Go ahead and stash him in leagues with deep benches.

While he did not break camp with the big club a year ago, it did not take long for Urias to reach the majors, and it appeared he was ready to hold down a spot in the big-league rotation after giving up just two earned runs over his first three starts with the Dodgers. However, he struggled in two starts after that, which may have been the first sign that trouble was on the horizon. The Dodgers sent him back down, and just a few weeks later he started experiencing shoulder soreness, which ultimately required surgery and cut short his 2017 campaign. Urias will be out at least until the summer of 2018 -- and possibly all season -- so he won't have much appeal in single-season leagues. He was once considered the best left-handed pitching prospect in the game, and Urias will not turn 22 until August, so he still holds plenty of long-term value so long as he is able to make a full recovery from his injury.

Urias showed exactly what all the fuss was about in 77 sporadic innings. He was up and down from the minors four times, in and out of the bullpen, and averaged fewer than five innings per start, but the poise and composure Urias showed was in line with that of a seasoned veteran. He struck out a quarter of the batters he faced, deploying a healthy four-pitch mix with each secondary offering getting used at least 13 percent of the time. He was essentially platoon-neutral with his righty OPS actually 15 points lower despite a .376 BABIP. Only four of 10 appearances in the second half were five innings or longer, but it's hard not to be impressed with the 1.99 ERA he had in 40.2 innings. Urias is likely to have another finely-curated workload in 2017, but after 122 frames last year, he could push 150 this time around. Perhaps starting in the bullpen is the best way for the Dodgers to get him to the finish line and have him available for a potential playoff run.

Urias just turned 19 in August, but despite his youth, he's on the cusp of the big leagues after making it all the way to Triple-A last year. Overall between multiple levels, Urias tallied 80.1 innings and posted a 3.81 ERA and excellent 88:22 K:BB. The ERA was severely impacted by his final three outings of the season in which Urias surrendered 15 runs in just 5.1 innings. Prior to that, his ERA sat at 2.28. Likely he was a bit tired down the stretch and off mechanically as a result, so we shouldn't hold his poor finish against him too much. Urias has never topped 90 innings in a season as the Dodgers continue to treat his development with extreme caution, so don't expect much more than 120 innings out of him this season. How many of those innings come at the big league level remains to be determined, but it's probably best to not count on a big league debut until September 2016 at the earliest. We also probably won't see him approaching 200 big league innings until the 2018 season. Urias remains arguably baseball's #1 pitching prospect.

It may sound crazy to expect Urias to dominate against Double-A hitters in 2015 as an 18-year-old, but it’s no more outlandish than the idea of him dominating High-A hitters as a 17-year-old, and that’s exactly what he did last season with Rancho Cucamonga. Urias is one of the most advanced teenage arms of all time. He posted a 2.36 ERA and a 109:37 K:BB ratio in 87.2 innings in 2014, and was extra filthy in the second half, putting up a 1.20 ERA with 62 strikeouts in his final 45 innings of the season. The Mexican lefty already possesses a plus fastball and an unfair curveball that could border on double-plus, and he made strides last season with his changeup, which now looks like a potential third plus offering if he can command it better. To say that an 18-year-old’s floor is a No. 3 starter on a contending team may sound insane, but it’s hard to argue the contrary in Urias’ case. A stellar first half at Double-A in 2015 may force the Dodgers’ hand and earn him a promotion to Triple-A before his 19th birthday.

Urias emerged as one of the organization's top prospects last season, tossing 54.1 innings of 2.48 ERA ball as a 17-year-old for Low-A Great Lakes. It's quite rare to see someone so young have this level of success in full-season ball, so there is reason to be excited about his long-term upside. That said, he is still very young, and at a listed 5-foot-11, 160 pounds, he doesn't exactly have the mound presence of Randy Johnson. The Dodgers are expected to take their time with Urias, so it would be a surprise to see him finish 2014 at a level above High-A.