2025 Dodgers season review: Landon Knack

Landon Knack’s second major league season saw rougher terrain as he slid further down the Dodgers depth chart, and regression on the mound.

Knack had four stints in the majors in 2025, including making the opening day roster for the first two games against the Cubs in Tokyo. He pitched two scoreless innings of relief in the second of those games and earned the win.

With both Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow out, Knack got an extended run in the rotation with six straight starts (well, five starts and one bulk appearance following an opener). May was his best work of the season, allowing zero or one earned run in three of his five games, with a 3.71 ERA for the month to go with 27 strikeouts and only seven walks.

The last of that run in the rotation was getting torched for three home runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Mets on June 5, after which Knack was banished to Triple-A for the next 16 weeks.

Home runs were a problem for Knack this season, allowing one every 18.5 plate appearances, roughly the same rate as Taylor Ward hit them (Ward hit 36 home runs this season). That’s worse than 2024 for Knack, who allowed a home run every 20.4 PA as a rookie. But coupled with a lower strikeout rate (24.1 percent to 22.7 percent), higher walk rate (6.3 percent to 10.3 percent), and higher barrel rate (10.2 percent to 15.6 percent) led to a much-higher ERA (3.65 to 4.89) and xERA (3.91 to 5.78) in 2025.

Regression came in the minors as well, with a devilish 6.66 ERA in 102 2/3 innings with Oklahoma City, and a strikeout rate drop from 28.1 percent to 20.5 percent in Triple-A.

Age: 27

Stats: 3-2, 4.89 ERA, 5.78 xERA, 42 1/3 IP, 42 K, 16 BB

Salary: unknown

Many will remember the final day of the regular season, on September 28 in Seattle, as the final regular season game of Clayton Kershaw’s Hall of Fame career, and rightfully so, with one more win thanks to 5 1/3 scoreless innings and seven strikeouts. But some of us are still thinking about Knack taking over for Kershaw on the mound and getting the final 11 outs, with seven strikeouts of his own, allowing only a run on one hit and one walk.

Knack earned the Dodgers’ fourth save of at least three innings of 2025, and the team’s first save of exactly 11 outs since Matt Young on July 5, 1987.

Knack has 119 days of major league service time and one option year remaining, having used options in 2024 and 2025. That means another year of riding the up and down before roster decisions get trickier.