The Dodgers’ plan, as it always is when the subject of the trade deadline is raised, was simple as their front office mapped out this season.
Spend big in the winter. Build as strong of a roster as possible at the outset of the campaign. And hope that, come the deadline, they wouldn’t be in a position where they have to go out and buy more talent at inflated midseason prices.
“Our goal this whole time,” general manager Brandon Gomes told the California Post recently, “was to have made all of our headline acquisitions in the offseason.”
So far, so good on that objective.
Three months in, the Dodgers have the most wins in the majors.
Even with several star players sidelined with injuries, they have built a nine-game lead in the National League West that — given the reinforcements they’ll have coming off the injured list in the coming weeks and months — already feels close to insurmountable not even halfway through the year.
Still, as is also the case at the deadline every year, the Dodgers will be looking for upgrades as they chase a third-straight World Series.
They could be a player for two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. They could try to shore up a bullpen that has been up and down since Edwin Díaz underwent an elbow procedure back in April.
At the very least, they’ll be lying in wait to see how the market develops.
And if the opportunity for a splashy acquisition strikes, they’ll have plenty of ammunition to swing almost any caliber of deal.
For all the uncertainties that remain more than a month out from the Aug. 3 deadline, the one thing the Dodgers know is that they have is a deep, talented and highly-coveted minor-league farm system.
They figured that would be the case entering the year, when their pipeline was once again ranked among the best in the sport, receiving near unanimous top-five rankings from industry outlets.
But since then, the performance of their minor-leaguers — and a loaded group of hitters in the outfield, especially — have surpassed expectations and amplified their organizational strength.
“We’re basically [ranked] 1-2 across the minor leagues in OPS, expected OPS. Top 5-10 in strikeout rate. Top 2-3 in walk rate,” Gomes said. “All the things that you really want to be good at, we’re performing at a really high level.”
Individually, standout performers have emerged at almost every level.
In triple-A, James Tibbs III is putting together a monster season in his first full year in the Dodgers organization, having already hit a Pacific Coast League-leading 20 home runs with a 1.000 OPS to showcase his potential as a former first-round draft pick.
In double-A, Josue De Paula has had a similar breakout, ranking second in the Texas League in batting average (.321) and third in OPS (.978) while tapping into natural power that has long made him a top prospect in the sport.
Mike Sirota might be having the best individual campaign of anyone, having already been promoted from high-A and double-A while carrying a 58-game on-base streak across both levels.
Even the team’s most recent first-round pick, University of Arkansas product Charles Davalan, is quickly finding success in pro ball, slugging .453 clip as the best hitting prospect in high-A Great Lakes.
And that’s not even to mention Zyhir Hope (another double-A outfielder ranked by MLB Pipeline as the team’s No. 2 prospect, behind De Paula), Eduardo Quintero (the club’s reigning minor-league player of the year from last season), Emil Morales (a toolsy 19-year-old shortstop already playing in high-A) or Kendall George (who avoided knee surgery, per Gomes, after a freak incident with a team bat dog with double-A Tulsa).
“Having our guys perform is obviously good for the short-term and the long-term,” Gomes said.
As for how much the performance this year will aid the Dodgers’ at this deadline specifically:
“It sure beats the alternative,” he quipped with a grin.
While the Dodgers system was already highly ranked before the year, the strength of their pipeline then had been more depth over elite star power.
Now, however, with so many promising bats having emerged this season, both the floor and the ceiling of the organization have gone up.
In Baseball America’s latest prospect rankings, the club had five players in the top-60 — headlined by De Paula at No. 5 and Sirota at No. 17.
Come Aug. 3, it will only give the Dodgers extra ammunition to work with, allowing them to hunt either a big fish (like Skubal, the type of needle-moving superstar the Dodgers always want to explore when they become available) or search the market for smaller impact additions (as they did at last year’s deadline, when they bolstered their bullpen and bench) without sacrificing too much of their internal future options, as well.
“As we get closer [to the deadline], we’ll continue to assess what’s going on,” Gomes said. “But we’re really excited about just the overall development and performance of a lot of these guys.”
Indeed, deadline concerns aside, Gomes emphasized what this year has shown about the club’s player development system.
He noted that, beyond the surface-level stats, there’s been “a big emphasis on two-strike hits, taking your RBI, moving the runner and not just saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna hit for power.”
“Not that that was ever the message,” he added. “But there’s just been much of a focus on taking pride in shooting a ball and getting your knocks … How focusing on those little things can in turn help win games.”
He cited a couple other players who have embodied that approach, including single-A third baseman Chase Harlan (who has a .324 batting average) and former first-round pick shortstop Kellon Lindsey (who has hit .400 in a small but encouraging sample across the rookie ball and single-A).
“I know people don’t care about minor-league win percentages, but we kind of do,” Gomes said, with all four full-season affiliates currently comfortably above .500. “I think it’s a good proxy of how well your farm system is performing, and how to understand what it takes to win.”
That’s why, while the deadline provides an opportunity to cash in such prospect capital, the Dodgers will be selective with anything they give up.
For as good as their big-league roster looks right now, the performance of their prospects this year has kept the future looking similarly bright.
And even if they add to their big-league depth, the Dodgers could also look for ways to bolster their farm system ranks too, as they did with the Tibbs/Ehrhard trade last year.
“It’s been a fun group to watch,” Gomes said.
And it has made the Dodgers even more of a team to watch as the deadline heats up over the next couple weeks.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
