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The winter meetings haven’t been very eventful thus far from a Dodgers perspective, but on Tuesday we can add another coaching vacancy the team needs to fill.
Quality assurance coach Juan Castro is leaving after 6½ years in various roles with the Dodgers after retiring as a player in 2011. He will be the director of operations for the Tijuana Toros in the Mexican League, per David Vassegh of 570 AM.
“That and then the bullpen coach, so we have a couple of different positions to fill,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters in Orlando on Tuesday. “So we're talking through that now.”
The other position to fill is bullpen coach, with Josh Bard leaving to join his former teammate Aaron Boone, now the Yankees manager. Bard will be the bench coach in The Bronx.
Thinking of Yu
One day after Dan Gartland’s report in Sports Illustrated detailing how the Astros could tell what pitches Yu Darvish would throw in the World Series based on his grip, both Roberts and general manager Farhan Zaidi addressed the matter in Orlando.
“We had conversations about that with Yu and trying to kind of pin it down. Obviously, we weren't successful,” Roberts said. “I think that's there's something to that, but there's also a lot more for me to execution, where I think that you could view that there just wasn't a lot of execution going on.”
"Did they have something on him? It's certainly possible." -- Zaidi
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) December 12, 2017
Darvish, now a free agent, was working out in Texas on Tuesday with former teammate Clayton Kershaw at what appears to be Highland Park, Kershaw’s high school.
Zaidi said the club still is having active dialogue with Darvish, a free agent.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) December 12, 2017
Rest for Seager
Just as the club hoped last month, Corey Seager will not need surgery on his right elbow this offseason.
Corey Seager will not require elbow surgery, Farhan Zaidi said. He’ll continue to rest this offseason.
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) December 12, 2017
Fabio overseas
Fabio Castillo, who pitched in two games for the Dodgers in 2017, signed with the Seibu Lions of the Japanese Pacific League. Christian Gin of Graveyard Baseball has more.
Castillo was added to the 40-man roster in June when he was drawing interest overseas from an unknown team. The right-hander, who turns 29 in February, pitched for the Hanwha Eagles in the Korean Baseball Organization in 2016.