Dodgers links: Ross Stripling, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner

Dodgers director of player performance Brandon McDaniel was a guest on Ross Stripling’s Big Swing podcast, and during the discussion Stripling mentioned Clayton Kershaw telling Dodgers’ starting pitchers to be ready early, perhaps two weeks in advance of whenever camp reopens (editor’s note: Stripling hypothetically mentioned pitchers being ready May 1 if camp was to reopen May 15; this seems optimistic).

“I know what he’s doing at home right now, and how hard he’s working,” McDaniel said. “He’s still throwing as if this is January and he’s ready to ramp up, but he’s already got four innings under his belt coming into this situation.

“If you keep the wheels spinning right now, the odds of you coming in and be ready to go two or three innings at the beginning are going to be much better than they would be in February.”

Links

Kyle Glaser extensively profiled the Dodgers’ player development system at Baseball America:

“They’re the model right now,” one rival NL executive said. “They’re hitting on all cylinders. They’re drafting very well. They’re developing very well. They’re obviously very good at the big league level. They’re doing it all.

“With their resources on top of it, it’s definitely a bit of an uphill battle for the rest of us.”

Justin Turner talked with LZ Granderson at the Los Angeles Times about a wide variety of things, including asking which Dodger most resembled Carole Baskin of Tiger King fame:

“I don’t know if I want to throw a teammate under the bus,” Turner replied, with a bit of hesitation. “We all think Carole is the evil one. There is something off about her. She tried to make herself seem holier than thou, but there is something strange about her. We don’t have any Caroles on our team ... maybe we got rid of them all.”

The Dodgers are hosting an auction of several game-used jerseys, with 100% of the proceeds going to local coronavirus relief.

MLB.com’s all-time selections at each position reached second base, and Ken Gurnick profiles the top choices for best Dodgers second baseman, led by Jackie Robinson.

MLB.com also has a quiz, asking if you can name the top prospect dating back to 2004 for each franchise. The Dodgers’ choices include a forgotten name.

Santa Clara County executive officer Dr. Jeffrey Smith told the county board Tuesday he didn’t expect there would be “any sports games until at least Thanksgiving, and we’d be lucky to have them by Thanksgiving. This is not something that’s going to be easy to do,” per Rong-Gong Lin II of the LA Times.

Minor League Baseball on Thursday is celebrating what would have been its opening day with an ”MiLB at home opener” online and on various social media platforms.