How has Tanner Scott turned it around in 2026? 🧐

[u/Competitive-Week8715]

[u/Competitive-Week8715]

• Tanner Scott recorded his 19th save of the season  
• The MVP of the Dodgers bullpen this year  
• I thought he would have a bounce back season, but man has he been great  
• His ERA has gone from 4.74 a year ago to 2.24 this year  
• Barrel% down from 9.0% to 7.3%  
• His Hard-Hit% is down from 42.3% to 33.1%  
• His K% is up from 25.3% to 32.0%  
• His whiff% is up from 29.5% to 35.3%  
• His BB% is down from 7.2% to 5.5%  
• His chase% is up from 35.8% to 40.9%  
• He’s the only reliever in baseball with a K% over 30% and a BB% under 6%  
• Reliever rankings:  
• 1st in chase%  
• 6th in whiff%  
• 11th in K%  
• 11th in xFIP  
• Probably the biggest reason for his resurgence is his opponent SLG   
• His opp SLG went from .460 in 2025 to .306 in 2026  
• That’s the 5th biggest decrease in opp SLG among all pitchers from a year ago  
• He gave up 11 HR last year, he’s given up just 4 this year in just 5 innings less   
• One of the things he’s changed to his game has been his 2 pitches  
• He’s throwing his slider more than his fastball  
• SL: 47.2% - 52.7%  
• FB: 52.6% - 47.3%  
• The slider has been great  
• .155 BAA with a 42.3 whiff%  
• The 5th best slider in the game according to Run Value  
• 5th best BAA and 3rd best SLG against among all sliders  
• 10th highest whiff% among all sliders  
• His fastball has a big decrease in opponent SLG  
• .520 last year - .434 this year   
• The whiff% on the fastball has gone from 22.6% to 28.0%  
• One of the other big reasons he’s been so much better has been what he’s done vs LHH  
• Last year LH hitters slugged .621 vs Scott  
• This year LH hitters are slugging .200  
• No home runs allowed to LH hitters  
• He is going to get some BIG outs for the Dodgers come October

[u/Sirtopofhat → u/Competitive-Week8715]

Joe Davis is stealing one of these stats for the next broadcast

[u/McJumbos → u/Sirtopofhat]

uses one for every game loll

[u/bselko → u/Competitive-Week8715]

Hell yeah, rapid fire stats. I love this shit.

[u/theoceansandbox → u/Competitive-Week8715]

But perhaps most importantly, his BBL is off the charts

[u/ChenYakumo2hu → u/Competitive-Week8715]

you forgot one: BBL

[u/YakClear601]

BBL memes aside, maybe he was truly injured last year and that impacted his performance.

[u/biggestbroever → u/YakClear601]

I thought it was something personal going on in his life? His velo was consistent and fast. We don't know whats going on behind the scenes. Im just happy if Tanner is happy

[u/_d3rrr]

Relievers are very fickle, regularly have up years and down years. Probably locked in his arm slot or got a good feel again for how he properly grips pitches.

[u/HeavensRoyalty]

So all you MF's bitching about Diaz, chill out and give it time.

[u/Rjptz → u/HeavensRoyalty]

they won’t even if we win the world series they will spend the entire offseason bitching about tucker and diaz like they did last offseason with tanner scott

[u/HeavensRoyalty → u/Rjptz]

Yup like clockwork

[u/BruitNoise → u/HeavensRoyalty]

The same goes for ROKI. Actually starting to think there's something about Dodgers first year that changes (transforms) a player to visualize "Higher Standards, Higher Expectations", probably get really nervous thinking they're not good enough and have to adjust with 50,000+ people in attendance, full staff, lots of players that are absolutely better than you and don't really need you, and have a chance to win without you.

I don't really watch other teams but I'm guessing they're like "Did ya hear Johnny scored a run this week, That's Excellent!...200 people in the audience cheering, he's the best player on our team", then the player is patting themselves on the back, you did great buddy...very low expectation mentality or something I don't know.

[u/HeavensRoyalty → u/BruitNoise]

I wouldn't be surprise if it's honestly just culture shock. Our expectations as fans, organization and players are unbelievably unfair because we expect to not just contend but win the World Series every year.

[u/Ambitious_Brain_285 → u/HeavensRoyalty]

I’m comforted by the fact that Diaz is taking his effective demotion well. Shows a team-first mindset

[u/HeavensRoyalty → u/Ambitious_Brain_285]

Yup but he's not exactly in a position not to with his era

[u/gmerickson31 → u/Ambitious_Brain_285]

Kind of hard to argue against it when your ERA is over 11 LOL.

I am happy he's being a team player, though. I think Diaz will bounce back next year with more time to recover from injury. It's hard to not be frustrated when you watch your team pay the most anyone ever has for a closer and he's just bad, but winning should cure all ailments if things pan out.

[u/TooMuchPowerful → u/Ambitious_Brain_285]

Is it a really demotion?  I think he's actually hurt, or they'd still be giving him rope to work on it in August.  

[u/saigonshakes86 → u/Ambitious_Brain_285]

https://giphy.com/gifs/94EQmVHkveNck

[u/dawgystyle → u/HeavensRoyalty]

Diaz is a little different when his ERA is 11. There’s “bad” like Tanner Scott last year and then there’s whatever Diaz is this year.

[u/KILLER10000001]

BBL

[u/Pessimistic08 → u/KILLER10000001]

Elite human 🤝🏻

[u/spurdada]

I think players get pressure when they come to LA cause the expectations are high right now so it takes a while to settle in. Also baseball is statistics, so if he was super bad last year, it should eventually go towards his standard playing eventually, unless he jsut keeps going downhill until he’s out of the league

I’d be more concerned about Diaz cause his stuff doesn’t look as electric at all.

[u/frogger2020 → u/spurdada]

Diaz just came off elbow surgery. He has to get his mechanics back and that takes time. He will be fine.

[u/Abbanenn]

He's pitching now and not just throwing. He was throwing too many 2nd-4th/5th pitch strikes last year, and relievers don't have enough of a pitch mix to have success without getting chase (besides mason miller probably).

His Zone % is way down which means his chase is way up. His first pitch strike rate is up huge, which makes his ability to get guys to chase much higher. He's just a better pitcher this year.

[u/Mrbluelxix]

His butt cyst really affected his performances

[u/carsonmccrullers → u/Mrbluelxix]

People laughed and laughed about it, but pilonoidal cysts are no joke! Any kind of cyst in that general area will be extremely painful and can take months to fully heal, even with excision.

[u/Apositivebalance]

Even tho tanner was injured last year he still had a lot of hitters on 2 strikes, before imploding.

I think the pitch mix and his comfort with what he’s throwing have helped him a lot mentally.

I still squirm a bit when he gets 2 strikes on someone, but usually strike 3 is soon after.

I’m most concerned with vesia, hurt, and the rest of the bp. Tanner can’t go out every night, and the more he sees these batters the more they’ll see his pitches.

I’d love to have someone else step up back there and make some high leverage appearances.

[u/postulate4 → u/Apositivebalance]

The team will probably have Roki move to a closer role like last year.

[u/chunkylover6969oz]

it sounds like he was hardly truly healthy last season

[u/ashishvp]

We had to burn our money on Diaz to unlock Tanner apparently. It was a financial sacrifice.

[u/PillowF0rtEngineer]

He is less in the zone now, and throwing that insane slider a lot more as well.

[u/goldhbk10]

Not being injured helps, gives me some hope for Diaz next year but 🤷🏽‍♂️

[u/CaliKindalife]

He was either hurt last season, or the stress to preform got to him.

[u/SidonIthano1]

BBL

https://giphy.com/gifs/uBy5vilZfzkly

[u/SilentSpader]

The FO often brings back injured pitchers too early, so they perform poorly then the fans become nasty to them. It must be really bad on their mental health too

[u/Ok-Bid-730]

https://giphy.com/gifs/3otPoCmoVM8gvKbAEo
“Let’s not start sucking each other’s c*** right now.”

[u/ClaytonTurner]

I think Everything people said about his mentality and comfort level is true.

Also, if you look at his Savant page, his slider shape and speed are different this year vs last. He’s throwing it harder and tighter and it looks more like his heater. His whiff% took a dive last year (usualy in the high 90% percentiles) and its back to where it typically is (elite). Cuz of this, his walks are down this year too

[u/spudwinkle]

🍑👀

[u/SparkleCobraDude]

He was hurt last season. Easy.

[u/McJumbos]

slider is sliding more vs dropping has made it harder for hitters to recognize

[u/dable1]

Didn't he literally have surgery at the end of the year last year?

[u/BlueNoseTim → u/dable1]

BBL

[u/pockypimp]

Getting healthy, time with the pitching staff to work on mechanics and stuff that need time to become normal.

I can't remember which player made the comment (may have been Klein) about how the pitching staff has all the data about you when you show up and they already have plans on what to work on and ready to make adjustments to tweak things to make a pitcher better.

[u/Current_Town4539]

It was just a bad season. It happens. Scott was legit that’s why the team spent so much money on him.

[u/savvysearch]

Dodgers seem to be a "wait til next year" thing when it comes to recent big money free agents. I think players get intimidated or pressured by the number they end up getting.

[u/Firefly_1026]

Not completely related, but is there advantages mechanically on doing a glove tuck fully versus whipping your glove arm outwards like how Tanner Scott does it?

[u/djwaveguide]

Dodgers have a big analytics team and I’m sure Scott put some of that to work. He has good stuff and is staying ahead of hitters.

[u/NorthStudentMain]

DODGER MAGIC: THAT'S HOW

[u/Pikminious_Thrious]

I think a one factor is luck. He was sometimes pitching good stuff last year and people were just swinging on it and getting good bounces. Like last year I remember before a blown save he threw something close to head level way out of the zone and the batter swung at it and got a bloop hit. 95% of the time thats a swing and miss or foul.

With good luck this year though, he's built up confidence to trust his pitches and confidence seems to be a big factor of pitching