2024 review: Michael Grove
Yesterday at 03:24 PM
Fewer home runs, more strikeouts meant for an improvement for Grove as a reliever this season, but two injuries cut into his 2024.
After two years as mostly a starting and bulk pitcher, Michael Grove was used mostly in short relief in 2024, but a pair of injuries cut into his second half and postseason.
Grove on the season had a 5.12 ERA to go with his 5.48 ERA in his three-year career to date. But some under-the-hood things were encouraging about his 2024. His 3.87 FIP was his best to date, and his xERA was 3.64 thanks to career lows in hard-hit rate (33.8 percent, after 42 percent and up his first two years) and average exit velocity (87.6 mph in 2024, 90+ mph in 2022-23).
This creates a difference in perception from varying sites. Baseball Reference has Grove as below replacement level in all three seasons to date, including -0.7 WAR in 2024. But FanGraphs has Grove at 0.4 WAR this year and 1.1 fWAR career, compared to -2.0 rWAR.
After making the opening day roster, Grove was a busy man for the first three months of the season. Though June 15, the Dodgers' 72nd game of the season, Grove was second on the game with 28 appearances, and his 37⅓ innings to that point were second among relievers on the team, trailing only Ryan Yarbrough.
But that's when Grove landed on the injured list with a right intercostal strain that cost him nine weeks.
Grove's usage changed a bit as the season wore on. Through the end of April, eight of Grove's 11 appearances included pitching in more than one inning. But from May through the end of the season, the right-hander pitched in multiple innings in only eight of 28 games.
His only two starts in 2024 were in name only, both short outings to start planned bullpen games. Grove allowed five runs in three innings in those games, but had a 4.50 ERA in his 37 true relief appearances.
As the Dodgers bullpen got relatively healthier as the season wore on — an inverse relationship to the increasingly-injured rotation — plus the addition of Michael Kopech at the trade deadline, Grove fell down the bullpen depth chart, and was optioned to Triple-A twice during the final two months.
He made the NLDS roster against the Padres, but allowed a home run while facing only two batters in the eighth inning of a blowout loss in Game 2. Two days later, Grove was replaced on the roster with shoulder injury, which made him ineligible for the NLCS as well. Grove was eligible to pitch in the World Series, but he wasn't added to the roster for the Fall Classic.
2024 particulars
Age: 27
Stats: 5.12 ERA, 3.64 xERA, 39 G, 51 IP, 16 BB, 54 K
Salary: $760,000
Game of the year
June 7 against the Yankees in New York was one of the best regular season games of the year, nearly five months before the Dodgers created new memories at Yankee Stadium. This Friday night opener of a weekend series in June needed 11 innings to decide, and Grove retired all three batters he faced in the bottom of the 10th to keep the game going.
The Dodgers rallied to beat the Yankees in the top of the 11th, which earned Grove the last of his four wins on the season.
Roster status
Grove has two days, 31 days of major league service time and one option year remaining,
