that the switch to reliever is permanent…….time will tell

It’s just nice to see him looking like a productive major leaguer.

look at their rotation. imho, the only sure things in their rotation is billingsley and kershaw. kuroda and lowe are both sporting decent numbers, but if i were a betting man my money would be on neither of them repeating next year. maddux is, as everyone knows, about done. lowe is getting up there in age too and his reliability is a question mark in the long run. i would not be surprised if elbert ends up in the rotation at some point next season. the dodgers are easing him back, and called him up to get him some extra innings in for the year. what is impressive is that, so soon after surgery, elbert still has almost, if not all of his dominance that he had before he had the surgery. that bodes very well for his prospects. people also need to realize he did not have reconstructive surgery. if chris carpenter can have TJ not once, but twice, and still come back, elbert can come back from this. i think the dodgers are trying to avoid doing with elbert what the cubs did with prior, which was rush him back, have him throw more than he should, and then have serious problems on their hands. opposing teams would have nightmares having to face a 1-2-3 punch of bilingsley, kershaw, and elbert. dont think the la brass does not know that(order may change)

I don’t really disagree with the general idea of your post but I wonder what makes you think either Kuroda or Lowe will not be successful next year. If you mean that you don’t think Lowe will resign with the Dodgers that is one thing, but Lowe is actually in the midst of his best season as a Dodger and one of the best of his career. Sure his strikeout rate has gone down a tick but he has increased his k/bb rate almost 50% by dramatically reducing his walk rate. Pretty much the same argument can be made for Kuroda. Obviously his strikeout rate is not ideal but he throws strikes and keeps the ball in the park which can lead to pretty decent success especially in the parks of the NL West. I honestly wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Kuroda pitch even more effectively next year. His strikeout ratio has steadily climbed as the season has progressed and he has only walked 9 men in his last 10 starts.

That being said I do believe that there most likely be some openings in the rotation next year especially if Lowe is not resigned. A lot will obviously depend on what the Dodgers do in the free agent market but even if some spots open up I wouldn’t necessarily bet on Elbert being the first to take that spot. The Dodgers have been extremely careful with Elbert coming off surgery and I would actually expect James McDonald or even Eric Stults to be ahead of Elbert as far as starting is concerned. Elbert has only pitched more than 100 innings once in his career and that was as a 19 year old in the Sally League which makes it unlikely that the Dodgers would be wanting to put any more strain on his very talented arm than they have to.

the numbers from kuroda dont mean to much in terms of comparison. one season is hard to compare numbers with. but they guy will be 34 next year. it may just be me, but generally pitchers start declining when they get that old. ditto for lowe, who will be 35/36 next year. imo lowe would be a great #4 in the dodgers rotation. most teams dont have enough talent to put someone lie lowe all the way back at 4, but the dodgers have enough young talent to get away with it. but again, someone getting up there is age like lowe and kuroda will at least have question marks. again, imho, i think the dodgers would be foolish to start stults or mcdonald in the rotation ahead of elbert unless it was to get elbert started out slowly with the intention of moving elbert into the rotation by midseason. i said i thought elbert would end up in the rotation at some point next season. i did not say he would start it. and, as you mentioned, lowe may not even be with the dodgers to start the season. if that happens, and the dodgers dont bring in anybody else, elbert will almost certainly start in the rotation. the dodgers may already be planning for this, which would explain why they have brought him back so slowly

There were some doubts about his delivery even before the injury. If they think the delivery is tough on the shoulder, maybe they’ll decide they can get more mileage out of him in the pen.

As a SP, the changeup apparently still needs some work, and command has been an issue as well. So let him bring the two plus pitches out of the pen for a while. He can be effective in the majors now with those two pitches, and work on getting better command of them.

They can always have him work the changeup back in, and consider trying him as a SP, at a later date. But he might turn out to be more valuable in the pen. His stuff will be nasty there.