Where the Dodgers' trade priorities lie nine days before the deadline

New York Times

6 days ago

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers started the final days before the July 31 trade deadline with their closer in an MRI tube, having lost 10 of their last 13 games. The worst stretch of baseball the franchise has produced in years provides a convincing argument to be aggressive despite a crowded and clouded market.
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The club is fully expected to pursue additions to augment their bullpen over the coming days, something that was already the case before Tanner Scott left his outing on Monday night complaining of discomfort in his left forearm.
It'll only continue to be the case now, even with general manager Brandon Gomes reaffirming his confidence in the current state of his roster.
'We'll see how these next few days come out and what everything looks like, but as of now our stance hasn't changed on needing to go out and get additional pieces,' Gomes said.
Some of this is confidence in a roster that still projects to be one of baseball's best. Some of it is obvious posturing. The Dodgers are far from the only club looking at the variety of high-leverage relievers on bubble teams and rooting that the supply of pitchers actually moved can keep up with the demand.
A front office that joked throughout the winter about wanting to avoid buying altogether and openly loathed being in the market for relievers at the deadline altogether (president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has said it's his 'least favorite thing' to do) has grabbed its shopping cart.
The bullpen is the club's most glaring need. That was the case before Saturday, when the Dodgers were among the several contending clubs who had a representative at 40-year-old reliever David Robertson's free-agency workout before he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. This is a group that has logged the most innings in baseball this season (446 2/3) and ranks 24th in the majors with a 4.35 ERA.
They are banged up.
The Dodgers were still awaiting the results of Scott's MRI on Tuesday afternoon, but even the best of news means he will miss some time. Evan Phillips is already out for the season. Michael Kopech has hardly pitched this season, and Blake Treinen has been out since April. Brusdar Graterol hasn't pitched at all after coming off shoulder surgery.
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'I do think that, we've shown in the past, if there's a trade that needs to be made for a high-leverage guy, we'll do that,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. 'We've had some good success with that.'
Of course, those deals have come with a cost.
Yordan Alvarez's name lives in infamy even though Josh Fields proved quite effective in a Dodger uniform. Oneil Cruz's talent remains tantalizing even years after Tony Watson was one of the final pieces added to a pennant-winning bullpen. It took switching teams again, but Zach McKinstry was a first-time All-Star this month after the Dodgers once dealt him for Chris Martin.
Those costs should be extreme this deadline period. Virtually all of the top relief arms bandied about — Minnesota's Jhoan Durán and Griffin Jax, Cleveland's Emmanuel Clase and Cade Smith, Baltimore's Félix Bautista and Pittsburgh's David Bednar, among others — come with multiple years of club control. With it, the already steep prices escalate.
'The prices are always crazy come the deadline,' Gomes said.
That's especially true when the Dodgers' two most big-league ready position player prospects aren't seen as likely to be moved. The Athletic reported in May that Rushing is more likely to stay, continuing to back up Will Smith as the All-Star catcher enjoys a career year.
Elsewhere, Alex Freeland, who has a .788 OPS in his first 422 plate appearances with Triple-A Oklahoma City, likely falls in the same bucket. Some of their internal pitching options that could help backfill or be used in trades aren't exactly at their top value, either, as Bobby Miller and Landon Knack have struggled in 2025 and Justin Wrobleski has had largely uneven results.
The Dodgers are in many ways banking on health. Treinen could be back soonest of the bunch, though he still needs to check off the box of completing back to back outings in his rehab assignment before he's activated. Kopech was insistent last week he could've been back before he's eligible to on August 27.
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There's a belief that Graterol could start ramping up for a rehab assignment sometime next month, though Gomes said Graterol wouldn't need much of a buildup to be ready for postseason action. The organization also hasn't closed the door on Kyle Hurt being an option for them, adding another name to the mix just more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery that ended his rookie season. If their rotation gets back to full strength or something resembling it (Blake Snell will have at least one more rehab outing before he's activated), perhaps one of those arms could kick into an October bullpen.
They're also banking on Kirby Yates turning around his start to the season. He's already allowed twice as many home runs (six) than he did in all of his All-Star 2024 campaign, and came within a few feet of allowing what would've been the game-tying blast in Monday night's win. Yates' calling card, the splitter, has been the issue — opposing hitters are hitting .278 and slugging .519 against the pitch this season after minuscule numbers against it a year ago (.114 batting average, .139 slugging percentage).
'His track record, his compete, preparation, all that stuff, I just know that it's gonna turn and he'll get that split where it needs to be again,' Roberts said.
The Dodgers have already gotten some trade business done on the reliever front, as former All-Star closer Alexis Díaz took Scott's spot on the active roster for his first true run of opportunity since arriving in a trade in May. The right-hander spent time in Arizona working with Dodgers officials to tweak his delivery, changing how he loads into his back hip along with tweaking his arm slot.
The results have been a fastball that is much closer to the mid-90s velocity it was at at his peak form. The results in the minors have remained mixed, including seven walks in 6 2/3 innings. But he was acquired as a flier, and this is the Dodgers' chance to see where he's at.
Adding a bat doesn't appear to be as acute of an issue, even given the club's current miserable stretch. Entering Tuesday, the Dodgers' .636 OPS in July was the second-worst in the majors. They dearly miss Max Muncy, who took batting practice on Tuesday and should be back sooner than the six-week time frame originally projected. Mookie Betts hasn't been right all season. Freddie Freeman hasn't hit since June. Teoscar Hernández has been playing at less than 100 percent for much of his time since returning off the IL in mid-May (a stretch where he's produced a .578 OPS entering Tuesday).
'I think the talent level is really high,' Gomes said. 'It just so happened a bunch of guys went into funk at the same time. We haven't been playing very good baseball. We're finding ways to lose and not executing in different facets of the game. Our guys are out there grinding. Sometimes that happens in a season.'
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The Dodgers are focusing on activity, even if publicly they're banking on hope.
'If there's pieces here and there that make sense moving forward, we've never been afraid to make trades when we feel it's a need,' Gomes said. 'We'll continue to assess. We'll see what these next week to 10 days look like.
'But over the long haul, big picture 162 (games) and what a potential playoff team will look like, this group is really talented and I would argue it's better than the team that won the World Series last year.'
(Top photo of Emmet Sheehan: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)