GLENDALE, Arizona -- After sitting around with a lot of time to think, Walker Buehler has one thing on his mind.

"I just want to win games, to be honest with you," he said. "There's no other way to explain it. When you sit down for a year, all you want to do is come and win games. I want to stay healthy and compete for a ring, no matter where that is."

The Dodgers' No. 5 prospect and MLB.com's No. 93 overall was off the diamond for roughly the first 12 months of his career after undergoing Tommy John surgery in August 2015, not long after Los Angeles selected the Vanderbilt standout with 24th pick of the Draft. Active in Spring Training for the first time, Buehler is thrilled to be here and eager to get going in his first real season as a professional.

"I've told people the mental side of having surgery like that is probably tougher on you than the physical stuff ... " the 22-year-old right-hander said. "It's one of those things a lot of people end up having to go through, and I'm kind of glad I got mine done early and in the past and now I'm ready to get going."

Buehler got into three games in the regular season last year -- one in the Rookie-level Arizona League and two in the Class A Midwest League - for a total of five hitless, scoreless innings. He struck out six, walked three and hit a batter. Making a pair of brief playoff starts for Great Lakes en route to the Midwest League championship, he worked five shutout frames and allowed two hits while fanning five.

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"The cool part about that whole experience for me was, the first game back, it's not some meaningless thing," he said. "You go to a team that struggled early in the year and kind of made a run, and to be able to join that team was a really fun deal for me, especially coming from college, where we played some playoff-type games. It's always fun to play in games that mean that much."

With meaningful regular-season games just around the corner, the Kentucky native will leave camp with a pared down repertoire.

"This spring, we've kind of moved into that three-pitch mix and slowed down on the slider, slowed down on the two-seamer and kind of worked with some numbers, seeing what we can do fastball-curveball-change," Buehler said. "The slider's something I've thrown forever, but I think there's the idea of renting a couple or owning a couple or owning one. At least for the spring right now, it's just the three pitches."

Where he's headed when camp breaks has yet to be determined, but Buehler isn't putting much thought into speculation that his advanced stuff would tempt the Dodgers to move him into a relief role to get him to the big leagues faster.

"That's not my call and that's not my goal. My goal is to be a starting pitcher in the Major Leagues at some point in my career," he said. "Obviously, pitching in the big leagues at all is a big honor."

"[Former Vanderbilt teammate and White Sox prospect Carson Fulmer] got to go [to the Majors as a reliever], but he wants to start. It's one of those things where you do what they ask of you, and I do have some experience relieving. In college, I would throw midweek and then relieve on the weekends once in a while and stuff like that. It [would be] an adjustment but not something that really scares me."

Whatever role he ends up filling, at whatever rung of the organization ladder, he'll be thrilled about embarking on a full season of competitive action.

"Absolutely," Buehler said. "You get to know people for a year and a half and you've got teammates you've never gotten to play with, so I'm really excited."



Notes from camp

Josh Jackson is a contributor to MiLB.com. Follow and interact with him on Twitter, @JoshJacksonMiLB.

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