When news broke that Dave Roberts and company had left Tanner Scott off the Los Angeles Dodgers' World Series roster, it was met with near universally positive reactions from fans.
One of the worst relief pitchers in the game by every quantifiable metric, with his 10 blown saves leading MLB, Scott has been thoroughly supplanted by Roki Sasaki and even Blake Treinen as the Dodgers' top high-leverage arm in the bullpen, with Los Angeles once again opting to leave the former Padres arm off their World Series roster as a result in favor of Clayton Kershaw, Anthony Banda, Jack Dreyer, Edgardo Henriquez, Will Klein, Emmet Sheehan, and Justin Wrobleski.
Asked why he chose to keep Scott off the roster, however, and skipper Dave Roberts adamantly declared that it had nothing to do with performance but instead a medical issue, as he actually liked what he'd been seeing from his one-time close during the week, according to The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya.
“Tanner Scott being left off was “a medical” decision, not performance, Dave Roberts said,” Ardaya wrote. “Things didn't look great when he was throwing bullpens this week.”
Initially losing his spot on the roster due to medical issues, with Scott having undergone a procedure to remove an abscess, the Dodgers have been just fine without their big free agent addition on their roster so far, losing just one game so far during the postseason, while their bullpen has largely been lights out thanks to the play of Sasaki, Treinin, and Alex Vesia, who has also been held out of the World Series roster due to a personal matter.
Does Scott have a future with the Dodgers moving forward? Considering he signed a four-year contract back in January, he almost certainly does, but that can be a story for another day, as with the World Series officially underway, Scott is no longer a factor in the conversation.
