It all sounds so familiar.
The Dodgers signaling that they don’t have any big needs. That they’re content settling for modest, marginal moves. That a bigger splash wouldn’t be worth the long-term risk. That a blockbuster acquisition isn’t in their future.
Nine months ago, club officials gave those same indications at the start of the offseason.
Then, they turned around and signed two of the biggest names on the free-agent market.
Right now, a similar script could be unfolding ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
The Dodgers are operating as if no big deal is coming. But many corners of the industry are skeptical that will actually be the case.
Here’s what is known entering the final week before the deadline:
–– The Dodgers are already baseball’s most talented team, owning an MLB-best 67-39 record that has all but assured them of another National League West division title.
–– They are confident their roster will be healthy come the stretch run of the season, with Edwin Díaz and Kiké Hernández set to come off the injured list this week, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow progressing in their own injury rehabs, and Will Smith and Shohei Ohtani expected to make recoveries from lingering neck and knee issues, respectively, as well.
–– Even if they do nothing of note before next Monday’s deadline, they will be consensus favorites to win a third-straight World Series in October, returning practically every key member from their title defense last season.
–– Their front office has long been loath to paying inflated deadline prices, especially in years when their roster has no glaring holes.
That’s why, in recent weeks, sources with knowledge of the team’s plans have downplayed the chances of the club making a major trade; be it for Tarik Skubal, a bigger-name reinforcement at catcher, or some other surprise target that could materialize in the coming ays.
Instead, their preference would be to unload some excess pieces of the roster –– perhaps Eric Lauer, or Alex Call, or Ryan Ward –– and take advantage of the deadline market to balance out an outfield-heavy farm system.
“I could almost argue,” manager Dave Roberts insisted in an interview with The California Post last week, “that we’re sellers more than buyers.”
Still, some rival teams aren’t sold on the idea of the Dodgers truly laying low this deadline season, as The Post’s Joel Sherman reported this weekend.
History says to be wary of falling for a potential Dodgers’ bluff, or discarding the possibility of an aggressive, unexpected, last-second shift in approach.
The sport, after all, still remembers what unfolded this past winter, when the team went all-in on marquee acquisitions –– even when it felt it didn’t really need to.
And as long as this deadline offers the opportunity to get another “needle-moving” player, as has been repeatedly shown during president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman’s tenure, the Dodgers will be lurking with a war chest of enticing trade chips.
Granted, this deadline does not represent a direct comparison to last winter –– when the Dodgers were initially believed to be reluctant to adding another reliever on a long-term deal or hitter on a top-of-the-market salary, then did both anyway by signing Díaz to a three-year, $69 million contract (giving him the highest annual salary for a reliever in MLB history) and Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal (the second-highest annual salary for a player in MLB history, behind only Shohei Ohtani’s heavily deferred yearly total).
Part of the club’s stated reason for their latest winter spending spree was to avoid deadline shopping, when prices are high and negotiations complex.
And assuming the team doesn’t have any further injury setbacks, their need for further additions now is even less pressing than it was back then.
However, speculation still abounds about what they might do in the next week.
Their involvement in the Skubal sweepstakes, in particular, will be closely monitored until the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s situation is resolved.
For now, the Detroit Tigers seem undecided about trading the pending free-agent left-hander. For the Dodgers, a best-case scenario might be if he goes undealt.
If the Tigers decide to move him, though, the Dodgers are still seen as a logical, if not likely, landing spot. They could offer top prospects (they have nine farmhands currently ranked as top-100 talents in the sport by MLB Pipeline), young pitching (such as Emmet Sheehan or River Ryan) and a host of other enticing options from their No. 3-ranked farm system (according to Baseball America’s farm system evaluations).
Skubal or not, the Dodgers will have other items on their deadline to-do list.
They would like to do some selling, as they have in recent years. Lauer is the most obvious candidate to be moved, as he’d become a superfluous arm once the rotation gets healthy. Call has emerged as another possibility, as The Athletic first reported, particularly on a trade market with a dearth of right-handed-hitting outfielders.
There are also smaller ways they could add. The bullpen is one area where a new addition wouldn’t hurt. Already, they’ve acquired hard-throwing righty Seth Halvorsen from the Rockies, stashing him in triple-A as a potential late-season call-up.
For now, no signs are coming from the organization that their deadline will include more notable moves than that.
But that doesn’t mean a surprise isn’t possible, or that –– in what would be a repeat of recent history –– one of MLB’s most shrewd front offices won’t find a way to execute a sudden surprise again.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
