Kirby Yates joins Dodgers with hopes of increasing his postseason experience

LOS ANGELES — It’s not like he hasn’t tried.

“I mean, look – this is my third time signing with the reigning World Series champs,” Kirby Yates said Friday as he was officially introduced as the Dodgers’ latest acquisition.

In November 2021, Yates signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves, just weeks after the Braves had beaten the Houston Astros in the World Series. Yates had not pitched in 2021 while recovering from Tommy John surgery and his comeback season ended in September due to inflammation in that elbow. He watched from the sidelines as the defending champ Braves lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in a 2022 National League Division Series.

A free agent again following the 2023 season, Yates left the Braves and signed with the Texas Rangers, shortly after the Rangers had won the World Series. The 2024 Rangers did not defend that title very well, finishing under .500 and missing the playoffs.

So as he signs with another World Series champ this winter, the 37-year-old veteran of 422 regular-season games has pitched just one postseason inning – for the Braves in Game 2 of their 2023 NLDS with the Phillies, a series the Braves lost in four games.

It’s a total he has a good chance of increasing with the Dodgers.

“Free agency’s the only time you can really choose a team. The older you get, that kind of starts being what you’re looking for,” Yates said of the opportunity to get a fuller taste of postseason play with the Dodgers. “When you’re kind of in the second week of August, first week of September, when you kind of fall out of that playoff race – it kind of hits you a little different. You’re getting older and losing out on another chance to go make a deep run into the postseason.

“I think the difference this time is how loaded this team is compared to everybody else. I’m looking forward to finally trying to make that run and be able to pitch deep into the postseason.”

Unfamiliar as he might be with postseason play, there is a good deal of familiarity that helped lead Yates to the Dodgers this winter.

When Yates made his big-league debut with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2014, Brandon Gomes was a teammate in the Rays’ bullpen and Andrew Friedman was running the team as general manager. The two were on the other side of the table, negotiating a one-year, $13 million contract with Yates this winter.

“He was awesome,” Yates said of Gomes, who he first met in Triple-A. “This is cool for probably the both of us. … You kind of gravitate to older guys when you’re younger to kind of learn. He taught me a lot. We had a lot of fun, and he was an awesome teammate. He’s easy to be around, kind of the same guy he is. Easy to talk to, it’s a lot of fun. It was an awesome relationship then and this is pretty cool.”

Yates was not the same pitcher then that he later became.

In his first four major-league seasons, Yates had a 4.02 ERA while bouncing among four teams (the Angels, New York Yankees, Padres and Rays). It wasn’t until his 30s that Yates’ mastered a split-fingered fastball and emerged as an elite reliever. In his past seven seasons (including the one lost to Tommy John rehab), he has a 2.21 ERA, 93 saves and 370 strikeouts in 257 innings.

“He’s overcome long odds from being a non-drafted free agent,” Gomes said of Yates, who grew up in Hawaii but whose parents are from Orange County. “He’s persevered through injury and emerged on the other side of that as one of the game’s best relievers. He’s had to earn it every step of the way, and he’s done it with his work ethic, mental toughness, relentless nature on the mound, all while making sure that he’s doing his best to make everybody around him as good as possible.

“We’re really excited to add him to this group.”

That group now includes the two best relievers from this winter’s free-agent market (Tanner Scott and Yates) as well as holdovers from last year’s bullpen like Evan Phillips, Michael Kopech, Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda and Blake Treinen.

It’s such a strong collection of relievers that veteran Ryan Brasier was designated for assignment to make room for Yates despite the fact that Brasier had a 1.89 ERA in 58 appearances for the Dodgers over the past two seasons.

“I mean, on paper, it’s probably as good as you can get, really. You can say that for the entire roster,” Yates said. “I think everybody knows that. Everybody’s been talking about it. The more guys you can have down there that you can lean on in certain situations, the better it is for everybody to kind of help ease the load off certain guys. Some teams that are kind of a little bit thinner, you have to tend to ride some certain guys a lot more than other dudes. I don’t think we’ll have that problem here.”