On Thursday the Dodgers and Twins agreed to a small trade involving former Top 100 Prospect, Diego Cartaya, a 23-year-old Venezuelan catcher who has struggled to develop as he’s been exposed to upper-level pitching. The Dodgers designated him for assignment earlier this week. In exchange, the Dodgers received hulking 20-year-old DSL righty, Jose Vasquez, a hard-throwing prospect who has spent the last two seasons in the DSL.

Cartaya was a big bonus amateur player ($2.5 million) whose career had a very promising first four seasons. He slashed .254/.389/.503 in 2022, at mostly High-A, when he was still just 20 years old. He was striking out at an elevated rate (26.7%) at the time, but he was also getting to impressive power and playing a premium position. His big frame and plus raw arm strength were the foundation of a likely defensive fit at catcher, and at the time it felt fine that Cartaya (who had missed all of 2020 because of the COVID shutdown, and most of 2021 due to injury) was a little behind as a receiver and ball-blocker.

In the two seasons since then, though, Cartaya has either plateaued or regressed in basically every facet of the game. His hands remain below average, and this shows in the way he tries to frame borderline pitches and in how he tries to pick balls in the dirt. Cartaya is capable of hurling darts right to second base with plus pop times, but he often either takes too long to get rid of the baseball, or airmails throws into center field. He has a good arm, yet he’s allowed stolen bases at an 80% success rate in his minor league career and 84% in 2024.

At a mix of Double- and Triple-A, Cartaya hit .189/.278/.379 in 2023 — his first year on the Dodgers 40-man roster — and .221/.323/.363 in 2024. His measurable power has dipped, with his hard hit rate dropping from 41% in 2022 to 33% last year. It’s prudent to give young catchers a long runway to develop as hitters because their bodies take a beating playing defense, and they might be physically compromised for large chunks of a season, such that it impacts their overall offensive output. But Cartaya has now had two years with the look of a fringe prospect, and so at this point it’s fair to consider him exactly that. He’s still a big-framed young guy with that big arm, and the Twins have had success at developing catchers who were once considered long shots to remain behind the plate, so Cartaya still carries some prospect value as a potential late-bloomer.

While Cartaya’s development stagnated and his options nearly ran dry, Dalton Rushing emerged as a potential everyday catcher in the Dodgers system. Hunter Feduccia (whom I have a backup catcher grade on) is a solid third option on the 40-man right now, behind starter Will Smith and backup Austin Barnes, while Rushing further develops in the minors. There was probably still time for the Dodgers to attempt to develop Cartaya if they really wanted to, but as a contending team they’ll likely have other, more pressing needs for that 40-man roster spot, and they got an actual prospect in return.

Cartaya is now on Minnesota’s 40-man in what will be his final option year. He is very unlikely to make the Opening Day roster, barring injuries to the catchers in front of him, and he’s likely to be the Twins’ fourth catcher on the depth chart when camp breaks, behind Ryan Jeffers, Christian Vázquez, and another former Dodgers minor leaguer, Jair Camargo. Industry inventory at catcher is always low, and depth at that position is coveted on the margins of every roster. If the Twins develop Cartaya enough that he can be their backup next year when Vázquez’s contract ends, then they can feel okay about having given up an actual prospect for him.

That actual prospect is Jose Vasquez, who signed with Minnesota at the tail end of the 2022 signing period (December 13) for $120,000, and he spent both 2023 and 2024 in the DSL. After walking more than a batter per inning in his debut season, Vasquez had a much better second campaign, working 2-to-4 innings at a time, as both a starter and reliever, and amassing 30 2/3 innings, 45 strikeouts, and a much more tenable 15 walks.

Despite his strike-throwing improvement, Vasquez is still most likely going to be a reliever. He’s a physical, 220ish-pound 20-year-old who has had trouble harnessing his 94-97 mph fastball, which sometimes has very heavy late sink. His 84-88 mph slider is curt and cuttery at times, but it flashes bat-missing two-plane shape and above-average length. Vasquez’s realistic ceiling is better than a generic middle reliever, but he’s maybe a half decade away from the bigs. He’ll probably begin his Dodgers career in Extended Spring Training.

On Monday the Dodgers traded Gavin Lux to the Reds for outfield prospect Mike Sirota, and Cincinnati’s 2025 Competitive Balance Round A selection, which is the upcoming draft’s 37th overall pick. Lux, who turned 27 in November, is a career .252/.326/.383 hitter in just shy of 1,500 career plate appearances. He is entering his first arbitration year; the Reds will have him under contract for three seasons.

The Lux Era in Los Angeles was rocky even though the team had championship success around him. He became one of baseball’s best prospects during an incredible 2019 season in which he slashed .347/.421/.607 with 59 extra-base hits in 113 minor league games. He spent the back half of that season, still age 21, at Triple-A Oklahoma City, briefly made his big league debut, and was my no. 2 prospect in baseball entering 2020. Expectations for him were sky high, not only in terms of his impact but also the immediacy of that impact.

Instead, problems with Lux’s throwing accuracy arose during the pandemic season and have been an intermittent problem ever since. His bout with the yips led to 2021 experimentation at third base and in left field, neither of which stuck. The Dodgers seemed determined to move Lux back to shortstop in 2023, but misfortune found Lux again when he blew his ACL in a Cactus League game and missed the whole year. Back at the keystone in 2024, Lux turned in an average offensive season – he slashed .251/.320/.383 over 487 plate appearances with a career high 10 home runs and 100 wRC+ – with below average second base defense, culminating in 1.5 WAR.

Lux is a good fit on a Reds roster teeming with versatile infielders, most of whom hit right-handed. While he’s anemic against lefties, especially their sliders, Lux is a career .264/.337/.408 hitter against righties and slashed .262/.332/.407 against them in 2024. The Reds look as though they’ll have the capacity to play in-game matchups at a variety of different positions if they want to, but from another point of view, they lack stability at every position but shortstop. Center fielder TJ Friedl has been on the IL five times within the last two years, second baseman Matt McLain got Arizona Fall League reps in center field when he returned from a serious shoulder injury of his own. Spencer Steer (1B/LF), Jeimer Candelario (1B/3B), Santiago Espinal (2B/3B/SS), and Rule 5 pick Cooper Bowman (2B/OF) all play a number of different positions, several overlapping with where Lux plays or has played. All are also right-handed. The Reds don’t have a obvious first baseman (Christian Encarnacion-Strand is the projected starter there, but he was bad last season) and it’s possible one of either Steer or Candelario will occupy that spot every day, necessitating a platoon at their other position. It’s conceivable that Lux will revisit left field or third base so that he, too, can bring some amount of versatility to the table and be part of said platoon, but no matter which players claim Opening Day roster spots in Cincinnati, they seem poised to move all over the place to help ensure favorable matchups for the offense.

The main return in this deal for Los Angeles is the draft pick, the 37th overall selection in what I believe to be a deep draft. Lux has performed like a 45-grade player so far, and prospects of about that talent level tend to be available in the Comp round of a deep class. This becomes the Dodgers’ first selection in the 2025 draft, as their ordinary first round pick was chuted 10 spots down to 40th overall because their big league payroll exceeded the second luxury tax threshold. They now have three of this year’s first 70 picks.

The transition from an infield with Lux to one with recent Korean signee, Hye-seong Kim (analysis here), represents a sizeable upgrade for the Dodgers on defense. Kim has played only second base for the last several KBO seasons, but he’s a great athlete with great range, and it’s reasonable to project that he’ll be able to play an MLB-quality shortstop, as well as several other positions, if given the opportunity. The Dodgers’ middle infield contingent in 2024 was a yip-prone Lux, several guys in their mid-30s, and a rusty-from-injury Tommy Edman, whom they acquired at the trade deadline. Their 2025 mix will depend on what kind of shortstop defender Kim ends up being — right now, they are still planning to have Mookie Betts open the year at short — and is pending whatever else the Dodgers do between now and Opening Day.

The sidecar to the trade is Sirota, a 21-year-old outfielder who was Cincinnati’s 2024 third round selection out of Northeastern, where he hit .324/.458/.577 during his career. (Unfamiliar readers should be aware that college stats are bloated.) He has yet to play an actual pro game, but he participated in Cincinnati’s instructional league activity during the fall. Here was my pre-draft report:

Speedy, power-over-hit center field prospect with plus plate discipline. Tightly wound athlete with narrow build, wiry and strong. Hands are especially lively with low-ball power. Likely going to swing underneath a ton of in-zone fastballs and be a below-average contact hitter. Speed fits in center; reads and routes need polish but the footspeed is there. Projected issues with the hit tool and Sirota’s flavor of build/athleticism look more like a part-timer. His on-base ability buoys his profile and gives Sirota a shot to be a Tyrone Taylor type of complimentary outfielder.

The Dodgers often target players with speed-driven profiles and attempt to make them stronger (Jake Vogel, Kendall George, Zyhir Hope), and Sirota is of that ilk. This is also the second year in a row the Dodgers have pounced on a recently drafted prospect who had yet to get his footing in pro ball (also Hope, from the Cubs).

So the Dodgers turn essentially a part-time player into a draft asset of comparable value (albeit a slow-to-mature one) and a likely lesser, but decent young prospect in Sirota. In a vacuum it’s a pretty even trade, but knowing they arguably replaced Lux with a better roster fit in a separate deal, and then cashed him in for multiple pieces feels like vintage Rays-era Andrew Friedman snowballing assets. For the Reds, Lux’s fit on their roster and their desire to compete for the NL Central crown helps justify things on their end, though it’s tougher to swallow a smaller market team coughing up such a high draft pick.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

For the better part of his 20s, Hanley Ramirez was one of the game’s top shortstops, at least on the offensive side — the type of hitter capable of carrying a team despite his shaky defense. During the 2006–14 span, he won NL Rookie of the Year honors, made three straight All-Star teams, joined the 30/30 club, claimed a batting title, finished second in the MVP voting, and served as a lineup centerpiece on two division winners. Unfortunately, his career unraveled after he inked a big free agent deal with the Red Sox, the same team that had originally signed him out of the Dominican Republic. Between multiple position changes and a slew of injuries — particularly to both shoulders — he slid into replacement-level oblivion, and played just 60 games after his age-33 season.

Hanley Ramirez was born on December 23, 1983 in Samaná, a town on the northeastern peninsula of the Dominican Republic, to parents Toribio (an auto mechanic) and Isabela Ramirez. Via Molly Knight’s The Best Team Money Can Buy, his mother wanted to name him Juan Jose and call him J.J., but his father objected. His paternal grandmother, a devotee of Shakespeare, suggested Hamlet, which his parents agreed to, but the clerk who wrote up the birth certificate misspelled the name, and the error stuck. “But that’s okay, because I love my name,” Ramirez told Knight.

Ramirez took to baseball quickly. Big for his age — he would grow to 6-foot-2 – he led his Little League team in home runs when he was five. By the time he was 15, he was starring at Adbentista High School and drawing the attention of scouts. According to scout Levy Ochoa, the Red Sox signed him for a $20,000 bonus on July 2, 2000, when he was 16 years old. He was as green as the grass itself. “Let me tell you, before I signed I didn’t know they paid you for playing baseball,” Ramirez told the Miami Herald in 2006. “I played because I loved the game. It was incredible when they told me they were going to sign me and they were going to give me money.” Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another star from one of Asia’s major leagues comes over to play in Los Angeles. KBO infielder Hye-seong Kim is trading his burgundy Kiwoom Heroes uniform for Dodger blue. Kim, who turns 26 at the end of this month, has won four straight KBO Golden Glove Awards — one at shortstop, three at second base. He comes to the United States after a year in which he posted a 118 wRC+ and stole 30 bases, with career bests in home runs, RBI, strikeout rate, and slugging percentage.

What’s the price for this golden Adonis of an infielder? Just $12.5 million guaranteed over three years, plus a $2.5 million release fee due to Kim’s old club. And if the Dodgers like what they see, they can keep Kim for an another two seasons — 2028 and 2029 — for an additional $9.5 million.

How do they keep getting away with this? Read the rest of this entry »

Rickey Henderson had something to offer everyone. He was a Bay Area icon who spent more than half his career wearing the green and gold of the Oakland Athletics, yet he was traded away twice, and spent time with eight other teams scattered from Boston to San Diego, all of them viewing him as the missing piece in their quest for a playoff spot. For fans of a throwback version of baseball that emphasized speed and stolen bases, “The Man of Steal” put up numbers that eclipsed the single-season and career records of Lou Brock and Ty Cobb. To those who viewed baseball through the new-fangled lens of sabermetrics, he was the platonic ideal of a leadoff hitter, an on-base machine who developed considerable power. To critics — including some opponents — he was a showboat as well as a malcontent who complained about being underpaid and wouldn’t take the field due to minor injuries. To admirers, he was baseball’s most electrifying player, a fierce competitor, flamboyant entertainer, and inner-circle Hall of Famer. After a 25-year major league career full of broken records (not to mention the fourth-highest total of games played, ahem), Henderson spent his age-45 and -46 seasons wowing fans in independent leagues, hoping for one last shot at the majors.

It never came, but Henderson’s résumé could have hardly been more complete. A 10-time All-Star, two-time world champion, an MVP and Gold Glove winner, he collected 3,055 hits and set the career records for stolen bases (1,406), runs scored (2,295), and walks (2,190); the last was eclipsed by Barry Bonds three years later, though Henderson still has more unintentional walks (2,129). He also holds the single-season record for stolen bases (130), as well as the single-season and career records for caught stealing (42 and 335, respectively).

“If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers. The greatest base stealer of all time, the greatest power/speed combination of all time (except maybe Barry Bonds), the greatest leadoff man of all time,” wrote Bill James for The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in 2001. “Without exaggerating one inch, you could find fifty Hall of Famers who, all taken together, don’t own as many records, and as many important records, as Rickey Henderson.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s important in life, as well as in baseball, to know when a relationship has run its course and it’s time to shake hands and part on good terms. Equally, if conversely, it’s important to know when not to screw with something that works.

So Teoscar Hernández is coming back to Los Angeles. The hard-hitting outfielder will make $22 million per year for three years, with a club option for a fourth at $15 million. Because this is the Dodgers, there’s all sorts of accounting rigmarole baked into the contract: a $23 million signing bonus, and another $23 million in deferred money, which will drop the value of the contract for CBT purposes (by exactly how much, we don’t know quite yet). Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Russell Martin was sneaky good. At the plate he combined a compact swing and mid-range power with strong on-base skills and (early in his career, at least) the ability to steal the occasional base. Behind the plate, he was exceptional. Shifted from third base after his first professional season, he took to the new position with the zeal of a convert. Martin combined outstanding athleticism — a strong arm, extraordinary lateral mobility, and elite pitch framing — with an intense competitive drive, an off-the-charts baseball IQ, and a natural leadership ability that was already apparent during his 2006 rookie season with the Dodgers.

The 23-year-old Martin’s arrival went a long way toward turning that squad around. In his first four seasons, he helped the Dodgers to three playoff appearances, including their first two trips to the National League Championship Series since their 1988 championship run. When the tight-fisted team nonsensically non-tendered him after an injury-wracked 2010 season, Los Angeles missed the playoffs in each of the next two years. Meanwhile, the nomadic Martin helped spur his subsequent teams — the Yankees (2011–12), Pirates (2013–14), and Blue Jays (2015–18) — to a total of six straight postseasons.

That wasn’t a coincidence. The general managers of those three teams (New York’s Brian Cashman, Pittsburgh’s Neal Huntington, and Toronto’s Alex Anthopoulos) all recognized that in addition to the softer factors that made Martin such a great catcher and leader, he was consistently among the game’s best at the newly quantifiable and highly valuable art of turning borderline pitches into strikes — an area that landed in the public spotlight with Mike Fast’s 2011 Baseball Prospectus article, “Removing the Mask.” Building on previous research by Dan Turkenkopf and others using PITCHf/x data, Fast showed that the difference between a good framer and a bad one could amount to something on the order of four wins per year, and identified Martin as having accrued more value via framing over the 2007–11 span (71 runs) than any backstop besides Jose Molina. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Before Joe Mauer began starring for the Twins, there was Torii Hunter, and before Chase Utley began starring for the Phillies, there was Jimmy Rollins. Hunter, a rangy, acrobatic center fielder who eventually won nine Gold Gloves and made five All-Star teams, debuted with Minnesota in 1997 and emerged as a star in 2001, the same year the Twins chose Mauer with the number one pick of the draft. The pair would play together from 2004 to ’07, making the playoffs twice before Hunter departed in free agency. Rollins, a compact shortstop who carried himself with a swagger, debuted in 2001 and made two All-Star teams by the time he and Utley began an 11-year run (2004–14) as the Phillies’ regular double play combination. The pair helped Philadelphia to five NL East titles, two pennants, and a championship, with Rollins winning NL MVP honors in 2007 and taking home four Gold Gloves.

Hunter and Rollins both enjoyed lengthy and impressive careers, racking up over 2,400 hits apiece with substantial home run and stolen base totals. From a Hall of Fame perspective, both have credentials that appeal more to traditionally minded voters than to statheads, but in their time on the ballot, they’ve gotten little traction. Hunter debuted with 9.5% in 2021 but has yet to match that since, finishing with 7.3% on the ’24 ballot. Rollins debuted with 9.4% in 2022 and has gained a little ground in each cycle since, with 14.8% in ’24. Both have been outdistanced by their former teammates, whose advanced statistics are much stronger despite comparatively short careers; Mauer was elected this past January, while Utley debuted with 28.8%, nearly double Rollins’ share. Still, it appears that this pair will persist on the ballot for awhile, with enough support for us to keep reliving their careers and discussing their merits on an annual basis. There are far worse fates for Hall of Fame candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Batters

They’re the Dodgers, so as usual, they have big stars, good depth, and a truckload of versatility at most positions. Is that ’nuff said?

A 7-WAR projection for a DH is, of course, bananas, and ZiPS actually has a 40/40 season as the average Shohei Ohtani projection, not an aspirational goal. Naturally, he’s got a great shot at going 50/50 again, though I have to wonder if, now that he’s reached that milestone and will be back to pitching, the Dodgers will insist on him being more conservative with his baserunning. Read the rest of this entry »

While the New York Mets were busy spending three-quarters of a billion bucks, the defending champion Dodgers were making a couple of lower-key moves, re-signing reliever Blake Treinen and signing outfielder Michael Conforto. Treinen, a Dodger since 2019, will make $22 million over the next two seasons. Conforto arrives in Los Angeles on a one-year, $17 million contract after two seasons with the organization’s biggest rival, the San Francisco Giants.

Treinen is a known commodity for the Dodgers, so this is basically a status quo signing. He had a solid first season with the organization in 2020 — 3.86 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 25 2/3 innings — and won a World Series, and then he was even better in 2021, posting a 1.99 ERA and 2.88 FIP across 72 1/3 innings. However, in 2022, Treinen’s shoulder started becoming a problem. After the season, he had surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff, forcing him to miss all of 2023. This March, his spring training was interrupted when he was hit by a line drive that bruised his lung, but that didn’t prevent him from having a successful campaign. His velocity was down a bit, though the dip had little effect on his results: 1.93 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 46 2/3 innings. And while his sinker wasn’t the weapon it was before the shoulder surgery, his sweeper was scarier than ever.

Bringing back Treinen doesn’t really change the outlook of the Dodgers bullpen, simply because it already looked pretty nasty, especially if you agree with ZiPS. (Steamer isn’t quite as bullish on their relief corps.) Treinen does have some associated downside risk to keep in mind beyond the normal pitcher injury stuff. He didn’t reach his final form until he was around 30, so he’s probably a bit older than most people think; he turns 37 at the end of June. While I always tell people that “hitters age, pitchers break,” Treinen is approaching ages where actual decline beyond normal injury/attrition is a thing that happens. The Dodgers have more than enough depth to deal with this, should it come to pass.

Adding Conforto isn’t quite as sexy a move as it would have been four years ago. With the Mets, Conforto had established himself as an All-Star talent, with a 133 wRC+ and 13.5 WAR in just under 2,000 plate appearances from 2017 through 2020. But a hamstring injury and a case of COVID marred his 2021 season, and a shoulder injury from a workout during the offseason lockout resulted in surgery that cost him the entire 2022 campaign. Signed with the Giants to a make-good contract before 2023, Conforto’s first season back from injury was rather underwhelming, with a bland .232/.344/.384 triple-slash line, a 99 wRC+, and 0.8 WAR, but he bounced back in 2024, though not quite to his previous levels. Across 488 plate appearances, he hit .237/.309/.450 with 20 home runs, a 112 wRC+, and 1.3 WAR.

Naturally, the Dodgers will not be counting on Conforto to be one of the grand movers of the offense. At this stage in his career, he’s basically taking over the role of late-period Jason Heyward, in that he’s a lefty-hitting corner outfielder who’ll complement the team’s righty-hitting role players, such as Andy Pages and Chris Taylor. ZiPS projects a .766 OPS from Conforto against right-handed pitchers in 2025 for the Dodgers.

Having Conforto on the roster clarifies a couple other unanswered questions when looking at the Dodgers. Dalton Rushing saw a good bit of time in the outfield for Triple-A Oklahoma City this past year, but I suspect that until the Dodgers are ready to use him in a full-time role, they’d rather see him get at-bats in the minors than fight for scraps in the majors. It also likely ensures that Mookie Betts will primarily be an infielder in 2025, unless injuries strike. Conforto’s signing probably doesn’t have much of an effect on whether Los Angeles brings back free agent Teoscar Hernández returns, though Pages may end up without a roster spot should Hernández return.

Do Treinen and Conforto make the Dodgers a significantly better team? Of course not. But they are a deeper, more resilient group with the two of them around.