Dodgers notes: Julio Urías’ HR rate, Sam Gaviglio, Gabriel Iglesias

A look at some Dodgers-related and MLB stories on a Saturday morning.

Since debuting in 2016, Julio Urías has the lowest home run rate per fly ball in the majors. Justin Choi at FanGraphs dug deep to figure out why. A brief summary: unique fastball spin mixed with a wide repertoire of effective pitches helps a great deal.

Pitcher Sam Gaviglio has reportedly signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers, per Steve Adams at MLB Trade Rumors and Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic. The right-hander, who turns 32 in May, started five games for Triple-A Round Rock in the Rangers organization last year before leaving to sign with SSG of the Korean Baseball Organization. In the KBO, Gaviglio had a 5.86 ERA in 15 starts with 70 strikeouts in 81 innings. He pitched in the majors for parts of four seasons (2017-20) with the Mariners, Royals, and Blue Jays.

Comedian and Los Angeles native Gabriel Iglesias has a show at Dodger Stadium on May 7 — the Dodgers are scheduled to be at Wrigley Field in Chicago that weekend — and talked with Beto Duran at CBS Sports LA about the show and Iglesias’s Dodgers fandom.

Patrick Dubuque at Baseball Prospectus riffs on potential MLB expansion, how close it may be and how the idea is used for other means. Says Dubuque: “Baseball is a sport to watch from home in an era of staying home, and while the action itself is as enjoyable as ever, the result is a transaction where the fans themselves have been put on mute, their cheers disconnected from the action and from each other.”

Andy McCullough at The Athletic talked to over a dozen minor league owners and officials of teams that lost major league affiliation after 2020. The extensive profile details the trials and tribulations of adjusting to a new system, and contains several memorable quotes. Like this description of rising food casts: “These kids eat like they’re locusts going through a wheat field.”

T.J. Quinn, Elizabeth Merrill and William Weinbaum at ESPN also chronicled the past year after minor league upheaval, and among the nuggets within is a mention of Endeavor, the group that bought 10 minor league teams in December, including the Triple-A Oklahoma City Dodgers. From ESPN: “MLB recently adopted a rule that no one may own more than 24 minor league teams or more than nine within the same minor league level. That rule is to be reevaluated in the years to come.”