The Giants just made a big trade. Will the Dodgers make one of their own?
If you're a major league team trying to move a $250-million contract, what other team would you likely call first?
The Dodgers, of course.
On Sunday, the Boston Red Sox traded Rafael Devers, a three-time All-Star two years shy of 30. Andrew Friedman said he never heard from them.
That made sense. The Red Sox were no longer using Devers as a third baseman, a decision backed by publicly available defensive metrics and the presence of Alex Bregman. The San Francisco Giants, the team that acquired Devers, say they'll use him as a first baseman and designated hitter, and the Dodgers are more than covered there by Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani.
But, in the wake of the biggest trade so far this season, I thought back to the mission statement the Dodgers' president of baseball operations put upon himself last winter. Here we are two weeks from July, and here was that Friedman statement from December: 'I do not want to buy in July.'
What Friedman does not want might not matter a month from now. He could see a pretty picture, or he could need a pretty pitcher.
For all the scrutiny of their shortcomings, the first-place Dodgers are in a pretty good spot. They lead the majors in runs, home runs and OPS.
They have won six of their past eight games, all against the teams immediately below them in the National League West standings: the Giants and the San Diego Padres. The Dodgers lead the toughest division in the majors by a season-high 3½ games over San Francisco, 5 games over San Diego.
After the Padres leave town Thursday, the Dodgers play 12 consecutive games against teams with losing records, including the team with the worst record in the NL and the worst record in the American League — the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago White Sox, respectively.
Friedman would rather not trade in July because the cost in prospects tends to be high. However, for the Dodgers, the annual expectation of winning the World Series trumps that.
'It's been our goal the last three or four years not to buy in July,' Friedman said Tuesday. 'It hasn't necessarily played out according to plan.'
On offense, the lone hole is glaring. The only starting position player not performing above league average on offense is left fielder Michael Conforto, who is batting .168 with a .277 slugging percentage and a negative WAR. The Dodgers do have Hyeseong Kim as a wild card on the bench, and on a roster loaded with positional flexibility.
'To date, obviously, Michael hasn't performed up to what he expected or we expected,' Friedman said. 'But, watching the way he is working, watching the progress being made, I would bet that his next two months are way better than his last two months.
'Obviously, like we will with all of our players, we will continue to assess where they are. The important thing is, if we have an injury or (poor) performance, do we feel like we have different ways to maneuver? We do.'
Is there a possibility of trading for a left fielder?
'Never say never,' Friedman said, 'but I think we would hold a very high bar and find it very unlikely.'
By the middle of July, the Dodgers would like their starting rotation to include Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the recently returned duo of Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw, and the rehabilitating duo of Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell.
On paper, that would be a pretty sweet rotation.
On the field, Yamamoto has a 5.65 earned-run average this month. It is unlikely the perennially cautious Dodgers would let Ohtani and Kershaw make every start from now through the end of the season, even if the two stayed healthy. And it is uncertain whether Glasnow and Snell can return healthy and effective by the time Friedman would have to decide whether to trade prospects for a starting pitcher.
No buy in July?
'I'm still optimistic,' Friedman said. 'It requires guys coming back on or close to the timelines that we have penciled out.
'We have shown that, if we're not in position to do that, we'll be aggressive to add. But our strong desire is not to.'
It is not that the Dodgers consider a bullpen game some sort of failure, or last resort. The Dodgers ran a bullpen game in an elimination game last October. They won that game, and another bullpen game in which they clinched the NL championship.
They have run bullpen games in each of their past four games against San Diego, and they have won three. They'll essentially run another one Wednesday, since Emmet Sheehan will be activated after four triple-A starts, none of which lasted more than 3⅓ innings.
So far, so good. But the Dodgers are about October, and getting there may not be painless with Jack Dreyer making one fewer start than Glasnow, and twice as many as Snell.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Red Sox takeaways: Sloppy defense returns in wasted opportunity; Hunter Dobbins to IL
SAN FRANCISCO – A quiet visitors clubhouse, players scrolling on their phones at their lockers, spoke volumes about a missed opportunity Sunday. The Boston Red Sox stormed into San Francisco Friday night, the weight of the Rafael Devers trade five days prior looming large with the longtime slugger in the opposing dugout. Advertisement That night, Boston's offense scored its most runs in a game since Devers' departure, holding Devers hitless in return. But the opener proved the lone highlight of the weekend in an otherwise frustrating series for the Red Sox, one that culminated in a rough 9-5 loss to San Francisco on Sunday. Manager Alex Cora and outfielder Jarren Duran were ejected in the eighth when Duran was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double. The sloppy play that has characterized much of the season for the Red Sox had dissipated of late, but reared its head again Sunday. Two key errors led to five unearned runs on the day. It marked the second time this year the Red Sox had allowed five or more unearned runs in a game, with six unearned runs on April 11 in Chicago their worst. 'We've got to play better defense,' Cora said. 'The whole weekend was kind of sloppy in that department.' The Red Sox entered Sunday having won eight of their past 10 games with a chance to win their fifth straight series. They'd carried a business-as-usual approach since the massive trade that shocked the baseball world exactly one week ago. But after three games, they walked away with just one win, slouching back to 40-39. Against one of the league's best lefty starters in Robbie Ray, the Red Sox battled early, knocking him out after five innings and taking advantage of the Giants' own mistakes. But as they have too often this season, they let it slip away. The Giants took a 2-1 lead in the third when Duran and Nate Eaton, starting his first game for the Red Sox since being added to the roster following the Devers trade, converged in shallow left field and let a fly ball drop between them. 'It was just loud, I was calling for it, I don't think he heard me,' Duran said. 'He's a freak athlete. He got all the way out there, too. So it was just one of those things we haven't played together a lot.' Advertisement In the seventh, after the Red Sox had pulled ahead 5-4 on a Ceddanne Rafaela solo homer, Romy Gonzalez, starting just his second game at second base, dropped a routine line drive that allowed the go-ahead run to score. The Giants put up four runs in the inning. 'We're major leaguers, that play has to be made 100 out of 100 times,' Gonzalez said. David Hamilton, a stronger defender, sat Sunday with the left-hander Ray on the mound and Gonzalez's 1.020 OPS against lefties, needed in the lineup. Hamilton, meanwhile, had also made two miscues over the weekend at second. Gonzalez hit a solo homer off Ray in the fifth, but his error in the seventh let the game unravel. It highlighted the strains of an imperfect roster with many moving parts. Boston's baserunning mistakes returned Sunday, too. In the eighth, Duran led off with a shot down the right-field line and slid into second base, but came off the back for a millisecond and was tagged out. The play went under review, but the call stood. Duran argued and was thrown out. Cora charged out and was subsequently tossed too. Alex Cora doubles down on the call that Jarren Duran was ruled out on 🎙️ "He [was] safe. Clearly." — NESN (@NESN) June 22, 2025 Cora said he was more frustrated about a play earlier in the game when Abraham Toro was called out at home after a Rafaela double. As the ball came to the plate, Toro tried to jump around catcher Patrick Bailey and was called out for being out of the base path. 'My whole frustration at the end was more at that (Toro play) and obviously the first game, the check swings and all that,' Cora said. 'It is what it is. I hate to get thrown out, I hate it, but obviously I have to defend my player.' Cora insisted it was one sloppy series in the midst of a good stretch, but the Red Sox have lost their benefit of the doubt and need to keep proving they can play cleaner baseball more consistently. Advertisement More takeaways and notes from the weekend as the Red Sox head to Anaheim for three more games: Another day, another rotation injury. Sunday, the Red Sox placed right-hander Hunter Dobbins on the injury list with a right elbow strain. The team recalled right-hander Richard Fitts. Following Dobbins' start Friday against the Giants, in which he allowed five runs, four earned in four innings of work, Dobbins said he noticed a velocity drop to the low 90s. 'Nothing really felt right,' he said Friday. 'It kind of gets in your head when you look up at the velo board when you see 91 when you're expecting 96, so I'm going to see if it was something mechanical. 'You notice it, you kind of feel it, that kind of was the feeling I had,' he said. 'I knew I could generate it because it showed up a few times.' Cora said after the game that Dobbins played catch just before Sunday's game and felt slightly better, but the team opted to not push him in his next start. Fitts is expected to start in Dobbins' place Wednesday. Dobbins bounced back and forth between the Red Sox and Triple A Worcester over the first month of the season, first making a spot start for an injured Fitts (pectoral strain) and then entering the rotation more permanently when Walker Buehler landed on the IL with shoulder bursitis in early May. In 12 games, 10 starts, Dobbins posted a 4.10 ERA. Fitts started three games for the Red Sox at the start of the season, posting a 3.18 ERA, before missing six weeks with a pectoral strain then being optioned to Triple A Worcester. Over the weekend, Cora also revealed right-hander Kutter Crawford, who made 30 starts last year for Boston but has yet to make a start this season, had another setback while rebabbing in Fort Myers, Fla. Crawford began the year on the injury list with a right knee injury but over the course of the spring developed a wrist injury. He's flying back to Boston and will have tests on Monday. Advertisement 'The knee and the wrist, kind of like he wasn't able to generate velocity,' Crawford said. 'So that's a concern, a concern for him too, if he's trying to push something, then his shoulder comes into play. So shut him down. He'll be in Boston in the upcoming days, and we'll know more next week.' Tanner Houck, who's been on the IL with a flexor pronator strain since mid May, is set for a second rehab start Tuesday with Worcester. In addition to Crawford, Houck, Fitts, Dobbins and Buehler, the Red Sox also had starters Brayan Bello (shoulder strain) and Lucas Giolito (hamstring) miss time this season on the IL. When the Red Sox optioned Campbell to Worcester on Friday, they did so with the intention of helping him slow things down. Cora noted the purpose is not for Campbell to head back to Triple A and hit .500, but to work on fundamentals and on doing less. With that in mind as the WooSox head on a road trip to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this week, the Red Sox are keeping Campbell behind in Worcester to get in extra work with the team's development staff, including director of hitting Jason Ochart, hitting coordinator John Soteropulos and field coordinator Andrew Wright. 'Be aggressive early in counts, recognize the fastballs, the different types of them,' Cora said of what Campbell will work on. 'We all know what he struggled with. So give him a little bit of a reset and then walk him through what we want. So that's the thought process. But he needs to play. I think at the end of the day, you gain experience playing nine innings and going through every situation.' The plan is for Campbell to rejoin the WooSox in Scranton on Thursday or Friday. In 67 games, the 23-year-old Campbell won Rookie of the Month in April, but hit just .159 with a .465 OPS after May 1. Advertisement Reliever Jordan Hicks, acquired as part of the Devers trade, began a rehab assignment with Worcester on Sunday following a toe injury in early June. Hicks had a rocky first rehab outing, allowing a single, a two-run homer, a single and a walk. He got two outs, but was lifted after 23 pitches, 10 strikes. Cora suggested Hicks might be ready to join the Red Sox during their next homestand that begins Friday, but also noted they won't rush him since he hasn't pitched in three weeks. Hicks had started and relieved this year for San Francisco, but the Red Sox will use him out of the bullpen.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Dodger Details: Shohei Ohtani's 2-way show, Freddie Freeman's struggles and more
LOS ANGELES — Baseball's most novel between-innings entertainment starts as soon as Shohei Ohtani throws his final pitch in the top of the first inning. The ensuing 130 seconds are the equivalent of a NASCAR pit crew removing the equipment that makes Ohtani, the pitcher, and applying all necessary for Ohtani, the batter, to step up to the plate as the reigning National League MVP. Advertisement Ohtani's 18th and final pitch Sunday afternoon was a cutter that Washington Nationals first baseman Nathaniel Lowe flailed at, starting the chain with little time for Ohtani to celebrate a scoreless second outing off of elbow surgery or his first two strikeouts in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform. He hustled to a foreign substance check with home-plate umpire Carlos Torres before walking toward the front of the Dodgers dugout, where a buffet of equipment options awaited him all ready to go. He quickly stuffed his sliding pad into his back right pocket and rolled up his right pants leg to strap on a shin guard. Next came his white elbow guard that he slid onto his twice-repaired right arm. A brief interruption came when he reached for his batting gloves, accidentally dropping them onto the ground and adding a couple of seconds to his tally. He slid his helmet onto his head and did not have time to spray his usual adhesive onto his bat. A minute and 40 seconds had elapsed before Ohtani took his first practice swing. Total time elapsed before stepping in against Nationals starter Michael Soroka: 2 minutes, 10 seconds. When Ohtani finally returned to the dugout after chasing an elevated fastball for a strikeout, it had been 11 minutes between his first pitch and his first time taking a seat to catch his breath in the Dodgers' 13-7 win. 'I marvel at it,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. That doesn't mean it will always be this way. Roberts broached the idea of moving Ohtani down in the order on his start days when speaking with the superstar ahead of his first start Monday. Ohtani assured he was fine with leading off, even with the quick turnaround. Still, the door is open to hitting Ohtani second, third or even fourth to assure Ohtani more of a break between the mound and the plate — especially during home games. Shohei records his first strikeout as a Dodger! — Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 22, 2025 This is all new for the Dodgers and something Ohtani hasn't had to do since 2023. Ohtani was 4-for-23 with 11 strikeouts since returning to the mound in big-league games entering Sunday. Just a seven-game sample that largely would go ignored if it didn't coincide with Ohtani returning to pitching. 'I've been able to come back to game action earlier than expected. In that sense, I do feel like I do have to work on some things,' Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. 'But at the same time, I do feel like I can perform better, even better than I used to be able to perform at.' Advertisement Roberts said he hadn't noticed any fatigue with Ohtani, who had expanded the strike zone quite often with his swings this week. The manager noted that Ohtani's bat speed and other internal metrics are 'in line' with his norms. (For what it's worth, his average swing speed had gone from 76.2 mph to 75.4 mph entering Sunday, still a small sample of just 38 swings.) He ran a bat speed of 79.6 mph in the seventh inning, hooking a hard-hit grounder fair for a bases-clearing triple down the line to break the game open. Then, 76.2 mph in the eighth when he lofted his first home run during a game when he pitched since Aug. 23, 2023 — the game when he re-tore his ulnar collateral ligament. Ohtani's bat speed seems fine. So did his pitching. He touched 98.8 mph with his fastball and showed much better command in the zone, something Ohtani said was because he cleaned up his delivery with pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness. While the Dodgers have floated the idea of building Ohtani's workload on each successive outing, the plan was always for him to go just one inning Sunday. 'It's going to be a gradual process,' Ohtani said. It's something to keep in mind as the Dodgers deliberately stretch him out. Everything appears fluid, including just how built up the Dodgers would like Ohtani to be pitching-wise. 'I think we're always gonna be cautious,' Roberts said. 'So I don't even know what that's going to look like, to be 'fully built-up.' I don't think anyone knows what that looks like. Because it's not a normal starting pitcher. So to say six (innings) and 90 (pitches), I don't even know if we'll get to that point.' Between rounds of treatment on his surgically repaired right ankle that has become routine, Freddie Freeman vented. His swing has not been right. The Dodgers' three former MVPs atop the lineup — Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman — have slumped. It coincided with baseball's best lineup looking quite mortal before breaking out Sunday afternoon against a Nationals pitching staff that entered ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.89 ERA. Advertisement Freeman has felt his struggles acutely. He's now 15-for-75 (.200) since the start of June after going 1-for-4 with a bloop single and two strikeouts Sunday. 'I haven't been very good for a while,' Freeman said Saturday night. He's repeated his typical net drill 'many, many times.' He's tried having his third round of hitting outside on the field, one of his normal troubleshoot strategies when he's scuffling. 'I've gone through every cue 16 times over again in the last six weeks, so just waiting for it to click,' Freeman said. His season line remains sterling (.321 average, .914 OPS). In all likelihood, his June will be a blip. Freeman's frustration was palpable, nonetheless. The good news is, his ankle is still manageable. The quad issue he was dealing with for part of this slump is a thing of the past. 'No aches. No pains,' Freeman said. 'The only pain is the swing. Maybe tomorrow.' Max Muncy had more than a handful of minutes to think in the sixth inning, a rarity in the pitch clock era. Nationals reliever Jose A. Ferrer had entered into a jam, went down 2-1 in the count to Muncy and then lingered uncomfortably around the mound. 'It was very difficult to throw in the zone (with the mound like that),' Ferrer explained in Spanish. Catcher Keibert Ruiz joined him to try to find a solution. So did a pair of umpires until Prior ran down the tunnel to retrieve the grounds crew to work on the mound. 2025年6月23日 WSH vs LAD ソロカから変わった Jose A. Ferrerの要求で、水入り？土入れ 流れが、うーんと思ってたら 10号グランドスラム イイネ 7回、守備も溌剌としてきた — Ozzy_Days (@Jiji_Days) June 22, 2025 So, Muncy waited. He'd already seen Ferrer the night before, and the lefty was pitching for the fourth time in five days. Familiarity was on Muncy's side. Now, so was time. 'For me, it was just catch your breath,' Muncy said. 'When he's ready, he's ready. And let's get a swing off.' The delay appeared primed to stunt the only momentum the Dodgers had generated all afternoon. Soroka had struck out a career-high 10 Dodgers through the first five innings and held a 3-0 lead. When Dalton Rushing led off the sixth with a double, it marked Los Angeles' second hit of the game. A walk and hit by pitch left them loaded as the Nationals turned to Ferrer, who went down in the count and asked for work to be done on the mound. Advertisement Two pitches later, Muncy got a sinker over the heart of the plate and laced it to left center for a go-ahead grand slam, his 200th home run in a Dodger uniform. He got No. 201 an inning later, launching a center-cut fastball from Cole Henry into the pavilion seats for a three-run homer. Muncy's season has more than just stabilized after a brutal start. He might even be sneaking into All-Star discussions, entering the day fourth among National League third baseman in FanGraphs WAR (1.6) even before Sunday's two-homer, seven-RBI outburst. He's up to a 131 wRC+, nearly matching his 135 mark from a year ago. Since trying on glasses to correct an astigmatism in his right eye, he's hit .282/.423/.570 with 11 home runs. 'It's definitely a snowball effect,' Muncy said. 'Confidence is high right now. I feel good in the box. I feel really good with my mechanics. I'm seeing the ball well.'
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Shohei Ohtani pitches 1 sharp inning, then drives in 5 runs in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 13-7 win
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani pitched one hitless inning in his second mound start of the season before hitting a three-run triple and a two-run homer, and Max Muncy had a grand slam and a three-run homer in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 13-7 victory over the Washington Nationals on Sunday. Ohtani recorded two strikeouts while throwing 18 pitches, allowing his only baserunner on an error when Mookie Betts dropped a popup in the sun. The two-way superstar is easing his way back onto the mound with short starts, and he was more effective against the Nats than in his season mound debut last Monday against San Diego. Ohtani then had his most productive offensive game in some time, delivering two huge hits in the late innings. He cleared the bases with a drive into the right field corner during the Dodgers' seven-run seventh, and he added his 26th homer in the eighth to put LA up 13-3. The defending World Series champions finished their 10-game homestand at 7-3, taking two of three from Washington. The Dodgers trailed 3-0 in the sixth when Muncy delivered his seventh career grand slam — also his 200th homer. Muncy then hit a three-run shot off Cole Henry in the seventh for his 18th multi-homer game. Nathaniel Lowe hit a three-run homer and Michael Soroka struck out a career-high 10 while pitching two-hit ball into the sixth inning for the Nats, who have lost six straight series while going 4-16 in June. Ben Casparius (6-1) allowed three runs and five hits over five innings after coming on behind Ohtani. Soroka retired 14 of the Dodgers' first 15 batters, issuing just one walk until Hyeseong Kim roped a long double to left with two outs in the fifth. The Dodgers finally responded in the sixth, chasing Soroka right before Muncy's slam off José A. Ferrer (2-3). Ferrer stopped the game with a 2-1 count on Muncy to complain about the mound conditions, compelling the grounds crew to come onto the field for significant work. Muncy blasted Ferrer's second pitch after the delay deep into the left field bleachers. Muncy tied his career high with seven RBIs. The slugger has done it three times, most recently May 31 against the Yankees. Washington's Mitchell Parker (4-8, 4.59 ERA) takes the mound Monday in San Diego. The Dodgers have a day off before a probable bullpen game at Colorado on Tuesday.
