The Dodgers Outfield Has Been Very, Very Bad to Start the Season
For more than a decade now, the Dodgers have reigned over Major League Baseball through a combination of top-end talent and robust depth. Versatile role players like Enrique Hernández and Chris Taylor have complemented stars like Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager, and Mookie Betts, while excellent scouting and player development departments have meant that the team has never had to scrounge for spare parts. That mix has usually kept Los Angeles clear of our Replacement-Level Killers series. This season, however, the Dodgers have a giant hole: the entire outfield. Dodgers outfielders have accrued -0.5 WAR, tied with the Phillies for dead last in baseball. Next time someone tells you to imagine trading Mookie Betts, take a moment to feel sorry for the Los Angeles outfielders, which didn’t even get to trade Betts to the infield; they just gave him away without getting so much as a Jeter Downs in return. Let’s take a look at what’s going on out there, courtesy of our the shiny new splits on our leaderboard.
| Stat | Actual | MLB Rank |
|---|---|---|
| wRC+ | 64 | T-29 |
| wOBA | .263 | 28 |
| xwOBA | .284 | 27 |
| BSR | -0.9 | 28 |
| Def | -1.9 | 21 |
| Mookie Betts | 0 | T-30 |
Well, that’s simple enough. The offense has been terrible, the defense has been not great, and Mookie Betts is a shortstop now. Before we go any further, it is time for me to shout the word April a few times. The stats above are based on just 239 plate appearances. Lots of things are going to change. In fact, one thing has already changed: On Tuesday, the Dodgers called up prospect Andy Pages and started him in center (presumably because they hacked the FanGraphs Slack and knew I was writing about their outfield needs). He knocked an RBI single on his first pitch.
That said, it’s not too early to look at what’s going on and ask some questions. First of all, Jason Heyward is on the IL with lower back tightness. He hasn’t played since March 30, which means the Dodgers have only gotten to run out their preferred outfield lineup five times. According to Dave Roberts, Heyward’s injury is not improving enough for there to be a firm timetable on his return. Following the injury, the Dodgers claimed Taylor Trammell off waivers from the Mariners, but have only given him six plate appearances. With Heyward gone, Teoscar Hernández has been the everyday right fielder. James Outman and Enrique Hernández have platooned in center. Chris Taylor has started in left, with Enrique Hernández also getting a few starts there against righties. With none of that working, Roberts said on Tuesday that Pages will likely see significant playing time against both righties and lefties.
This seems like the right place to acknowledge how confusing the landscape is in terms of names. There are two Hernándezes, a first-name Taylor and a last-name Taylor, and an Outman who is suddenly living up to his name after all.
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | wRC+ | BsR | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teoscar Hernández | 83 | 7.2 | 32.5 | 138 | 0.2 | -1.9 | 0.5 |
| James Outman | 63 | 11.1 | 31.7 | 73 | -0.4 | 0.5 | 0 |
| Enrique Hernández | 43 | 4.7 | 23.3 | 42 | -0.1 | 0.1 | -0.2 |
| Chris Taylor | 42 | 14.3 | 42.9 | -25 | -0.1 | -0.8 | -0.6 |
| Jason Heyward | 15 | 0 | 6.7 | 11 | 0 | 0.3 | -0.1 |
| Taylor Trammell | 6 | 0 | 50 | -100 | 0 | 0 | -0.1 |
| Andy Pages | 4 | 0 | 50 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Let’s start with the good. Teoscar Hernández is crushing it right now. After a down year in Seattle — possibly the result of having trouble seeing the ball at T-Mobile Park — Hernández signed a one-year deal in January, and is off to a running start. However, it’s early and he has a .314 xwOBA, which would be his worst mark since 2019. So far, Hernández is chasing much less, making a lot more contact, and not sacrificing any contact quality. He may not stay lucky forever, but those underlying numbers are encouraging.
In 2023, James Outman put up a four-win rookie season by doing what we nerds so often ask of hitters: making the most of his hard contact by pulling the ball in the air. As a result, he launched 23 homers and ran a great barrel rate despite below-average contact quality and lots of strikeouts. That also made him a likely regression candidate. Despite a 118 wRC+, he ran a DRC+ of 84. The D stands for Deserved, and this season, his DRC+ is 81. However, it’s way too early to assume that Outman can’t replicate his 2024 performance or find ways to get better in his sophomore campaign. So far this season, he’s hitting the ball a bit harder and his contact rate has improved from infinitesimally small to merely microscopic. Outman isn’t going to run a .242 BABIP all year, and it’s too early to panic about him. However, he needs a platoon partner, and right now, he really doesn’t have one.
Chris Taylor isn’t going to keep running a hilariously low .069 BABIP or a not at all funny -25 wRC+. Even over a short sample size, those are astoundingly unlucky numbers. He’s been extremely aggressive on pitches in the strike zone. That should be a good thing, but he’s made contact with them just 67.7% of the time, leading to a 42.9% strikeout rate. Because he’s walking and striking out like Joey Gallo, Taylor has put only 18 balls in play. That’s a tiny sample size, so it’s too early to do anything more than note that his contact quality has been dreadful. Taylor is coming off a 104 wRC+ in 2023, and he’s only been below 100 once in the last eight seasons.
Enrique Hernández hit his first homer of the season Tuesday night. Maybe the Dodgers can help him find his swing; after all, he hit much better following the trade that sent him from Boston to Los Angeles in 2023. But please understand how big a reclamation project that would be. From 2022 to 2024, Hernández has run a 72 wRC+, making him the sixth-worst hitter in all of baseball (minimum 700 PAs). The players below him could all be more or less described as defensive specialists; they’ve all put up positive WAR totals thanks to good defensive marks (with the exception of Martín Maldonado, whose defensive value is invisible to defensive metrics and quite possibly visible only to MLB managers). But Hernández has been worth -8.9 runs in the field, and -0.9 WAR overall, making the seventh-worst position player overall. That’s not just a replacement-level killer. His ugly defensive numbers at shortstop in 2023 were eye-opening, and if he doesn’t have the glove for center or the bat for left, that’s a big problem.
Lastly, there’s Pages (pronounced PA-hez), who was called up Tuesday. The 23-year-old Cuban missed most of the 2023 season due to surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, but he’s already hit five homers at Triple-A this season. We have him ranked seventh in the Dodgers system. MLB Pipeline has him ranked higher: third in the system and 96th overall. After discussing Outman and Teoscar Hernández, Pages’ profile might sound familiar. His swing is designed to generate lift, allowing him to do plenty of damage even though he doesn’t boast tons of raw power. Like Outman and Hernández, that also means he’s going to strike out quite a bit. He started in center on Wednesday and has played there some in the minors, but he’s destined for a corner spot long-term, with a big arm that makes right field most likely.
Pages brings one more thing that the Los Angeles outfield sorely needs: youth. Until the arrival of Pages, Outman was the baby, but he’ll turn 27 in a week. Prorated by plate appearances, Dodgers outfielders are 30.5 years old, making them the third-oldest outfield in baseball. The oldest players are also the ones with the biggest question marks. Can Heyward stay healthy, and if he does, can he repeat his 2023 breakout? Are Taylor and Enrique Hernández still useful pieces at this stage of their careers? The overall strength of their roster means that the Dodgers can likely coast to the playoffs even if they keep getting absolutely nothing from their outfield, but that’s not usually how they operate.
Davy Andrews is a Brooklyn-based musician and a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @davyandrewsdavy.bsky.social.
Put Shohei in the outfield, cowards!
Would love to see him chase down a ball in the gap, soft toss it to the CF so he can gun it into the infield!
Or, you know, Betts? I never thought I’d type this combination of words, but their best option right now might be getting Miguel Rojas’s bat into the lineup more often.
Yeah i would much rather see Betts in the OF with Rojas at SS. Its just a much better defensive team with those two there. Sure Betts can play SS but Rojas is just way better at it than him and we need him in the OF
The team is almost certainly better offensively with Betts at SS, Lux at 2B and Heyward in RF
Maybe, but Heyward isn’t going to be an option anytime soon. Even then, Rojas might still be a better hitter than any of their CF options aside from Betts.
“$50 says they won’t do it.”
~anonymous Dodger DH
That seemed to lose something in the translation
*slow clap*
This would work out so well for them if possible (and maybe will be possible later this year?). They could DH Will Smith when Barnes catches, or Muncy some of the time. It shows how someone who only plays DH actually has limited value, because otherwise the DH gives so much flexibility. They’re obviously not paying to have Ohtani be merely the best DH in baseball.
He’s so athletic that maybe it’s not crazy for him to learn to make OF throws with his other arm.
I’d call Chris Taylor better than a “versatile role player”, comparable to Enrique Hernandez. For about 6 years he averaged something like 115 wRC+ while playing 7 positions. Versatility is utterly ignored in WAR calculations as far as I can tell, but he allowed the Dodgers to have an average or above average player instead of a replacement level or below dude
While I’m not a fan of the specific positional adjustments used — the DH “penalty” is too harsh, in particular — but that is precisely how you value versatility. Anything else double-counts other players’ contributions.
He also only cleared 115 twice — his spectacular 2017 season and 2020. He approached 115 two other times (reaching 113 both times). He’s a high-end role player, but still a role player.
A 113 wRC+ with functional defense makes you a 2-4 win starter at literally every position other than 1st.
Versatility means that you minimise negative outcomes.
I get the double counting argument, but having Chris Taylor who can (could?) play 3 WAR/600 at numerous spots in the field lowers the cost of injuries at many spots on the field. That player is worth more than 3 WAR.
Agreed. A player saving you a roster spot is worth a noticable amount, roster spots themselves have value, and this means platoon players (who eat a roster spot but can only play part of the time) are overvalued, and versatile players are undervalued.
It’s not just that, it’s that if you have the theoretically “perfect” utility player is worth 3 WAR no matter where he plays, any injury to your starting lineup means that you are now giving ABs to your 10th best player, whereas if you don’t have a player like this you are giving ABs to your 15th? best player.
And even aside from the roster construction argument, a versatile player can help the team by allowing you to keep worse players out of the lineup, which is Dan B’s minimizing negative outcomes argument.
Here’s a toy example–assuming all these players are scratch at defense at their positions.
A team starts with a 2B whose wRC+ against LHP/RHP are 90/70
and an LF who is 80/100 against LHP/RHP.
They have the choice of adding a 2B/LF who hits 110/110, or a pure 2B who hits 110/110.
If they add the 2B/LF, he’ll play LF against LHP and 2B against RHP. So their 2B production will be 90/110 and their LF production will be 110/100.
If they add the pure 2B, he pushes the other 2B to the bench, so their 2B production is 110/110 and their LF production is 80/100.
Overall their lineup is better with the 2B/LF. But the 2B/LF gets ranked as lower WAR, because he has the same offense and defense and a worse overall positional adjustment.
In this case, the versatility allowed them to bench the original LF in a situation where he was worse than the original 2B. That may not be the most common situation, because we usually expect the replacement-ish players farther down the defensive spectrum to hit better, but rosters don’t always line up neatly that way.
I’m not saying WAR should include a versatility bonus, but we should recognize this as a limitation of the positional adjustment.
All Red Sox fans remember Brock Holt very fondly. He was the epitome of the excellent Swiss Army Knife and even made an All-Star game in 2015
That’s BROCK HOLT!
Saving a roster spot is a rounding error, according to Tom Tango. A lot of this came up when people were trying to figure out if Ohtani would break WAR. Consensus seems to be he does not, but the article below is a good summary of both sides. Even the most optimistic take is a very small bump.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/68403/baseball-therapy-the-war-over-ohtanis-value/
If roster spots are rounding error, then relievers and starters should have the same replacement level, because you could just use nothing but relievers if roster spots were free.
Except this is not true, and the author of the article you link concludes that WAR is incorrect precisely because it doesn’t include the value of flexibility. Quoting from near the end of the article: “As flexibility within a roster becomes the way that teams are put together, it’s a good idea to remember that flexibility has value, but that WAR isn’t set up to capture it.”
Yes, the article makes the case that Tom Tango is wrong, but even so, all it claims is that “we can start to see how that value can be a few tenths of a win.”
As I said, even the most optimistic take is that the bump is small, and that’s assuming you buy the premise.
Edit: see also here, specifically on the question of defensive versatility, for an argument that it amounts to “a few extra runs a year.” And both arguments hedge, to boot, saying that it _probably_ amounts to a small effect.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/21020/baseball-therapy-the-zobrist-effect/
That breaks the rules of roster construction, so all flexibility calculations no longer work. Most if not all statistics involving finite limits become broken when that limit is removed.
You could still be correct about flexibility having notable value, but not for that reason.
I get the versatility argument, but your argument for platoon players doesn’t work. Their penalty for playing less is simply, well, less playing time available to accumulate value.
Also, they don’t actually cost an extra roster spot. Whichever platoon player doesn’t play that day is still available as a bench player to pinch-hit (against a relief pitcher with the platoon advantage), pinch-run, or play defense; which is exactly the same outcome you have with a full-time starter with an actual bench player with large platoon splits (which are commonly found on MLB benches) as his backup.
imagine having the dodgers payroll and having your of’er play ss and your 1B playing 3rd.
Guessing that you’re not a baseball guru
Or, imagine being a guru and thinking that players ARE specific positions and not able to play multiple positions.
Or, imagine the Red Sox being so deep in the infield that they had to move their 2Bman to RF
The Dodgers pride running their lineups like an OOTP team: “eh, who needs to sign a shortstop, I’ll just put my right fielder there.”
They can’t sign a shortstop if the Padres have collected them all…
Between them and the Guardians (Gimenez, Rocchio, Freeman, Arias, Ramirez), it’s amazing the rest of the league has any shortstops left.
Someone mistakenly thought Lux was a shortstop. Internal scouting gone haywire.
I think Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernández are cooked. Heyward had a lot of things go right for him last year just to be a 2 war guy (he wasn’t worth that much the prior 3yrs combined). Primarily relying on an OF of Teoscar, Pages, Outman might be okay but both Pages and Outman are high variance. I’d call the Orioles and see if I can get Santander for a reliever.
The Dodgers, a team with a pen that has looked horrible, should offload one of their better relievers to get the Orioles 3-hole hitter who they presumably have no interest in moving?
In fairness…they got their starting shortstop for a LOT less!
I don’t think it takes multiple good relievers to get Santander. The Dodger pen is currently projected as the 8th best bullpen in MLB and their ERA/xFIP ranks 17th/18th in MLB so far (so the pen has been average, not horrible, for the first 3 weeks).
Historically the Dodgers have done a great job developing and optimizing RPs. I’d have more confidence in them patching the pen from within than the outfield.
If Pages’ is all the way back from his injury, I think this will be fine. He and Teoscar Hernandez will be good in the corners, and Outman and Hernandez will make a fine platoon in center.
I do question the idea that Jason Heyward was going to replicate what he did last year, but if Pages and Hernandez are healthy and good it probably doesn’t matter.
Enrique Hernandez cannot possibly be half of a fine starting platoon for a contending team because he is not good at baseball. He’s been valuable twice in his career, in 2018 which was beyond fluky with him hitting RHP better than LHP, and in 2021, both years where he was lucky with his HR rate, which he needs to be because his batted ball mix is garbage for a player with middling power, but who very obviously sells out for power, keeping his infield fly % inflated and his BABIP perpetually unacceptable. There is a reason his BABIP since 2016 is .261 and hasn’t been higher than .278. It’s only been higher than .266 twice. He is no longer a good defender, he’s cocky and entitled, and he no longer takes walks. Statcast thought he overperformed his peripherals last year. Nothing against you, but I’m so goddamn tired of people thinking that he’s even an MLB quality role player. He isn’t. Yet he accuses all teams of collusion because he didn’t get big money this offseason. He has no redeeming qualities, because he’s convinced himself that he’s good as-is. At this point they may as well let Outman get some reps against LHP and see if he can find a path to improve, because Enrique does nothing well anymore, doesn’t have nearly enough stick for the grass or nearly enough glove for the dirt, and his annoying clubhouse antics are hardly a reason to keep him around.
Did he kick your dog or something?
Hernandez is probably a plus center field defender with a career 114 wRC+ against left handed pitching. Either you’re expecting way too much from the guy or you’re thinking of him having a much more extended role than the smaller part of a center field platoon.
I should add that the Dodgers’ attraction to guys who can staff the short side of a platoon is mystifying to me, but if you have someone like Hernandez this is absolutely the best use of his skills.
While past performance is no guarantee of future results, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that the Dodgers will be fine.
I would personally be much more worried about the fact that they’re rocking a 4-man rotation where James Paxton and Tyler Glasnow are among the healthy ones. If they fall short, it’s going to be because of run prevention and not scoring.
Maybe we should assume that all pitchers, whether healthy today or not, whether healthy in the past or not, aren’t reliably available. Maybe the Dodgers and Rangers approach of getting 14 occasionally healthy but really awesome starting pitchers is actually the best way to build a staff.
The Maldonado line is *gold*
Will they play an entire ex-Mariners outfield of Chris Taylor, Teoscar and Trammell?