It’s hard to imagine a more successful one-year deal for both player and team than the recently expired pact between outfielder Teoscar Hernández and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Generally, the motivation for a player to sign a one-year contract is to restore a standard that was much higher before an ill-timed year dampened his value when he entered free agency. After a disappointing season with the Mariners in 2023, Hernández was unable to get the caliber of multi-year contract he was looking for last winter. Instead, he signed a one-year, $23.5 million pact with the Dodgers, a logical landing spot for any player. looking for the best version of themselves.
If the strict goal was to deliver a better season than the previous one and remind the league what he is capable of, then Hernández has achieved that without a doubt in 2024. He increased his OPS by almost 100 points, hit 33 career home runs and became one of the more productive outfielders in baseball. That said, if Hernández had achieved similar statistical feats for, say, the Twins with 82 wins, we wouldn’t be talking about him as much at the start of free agency.
But Hernández’s year in Dodger blue carried significant weight over his improved numbers. From the first days of spring training in February, it became clear that he would be a key player on the team that attracted the most attention of any major league club. While Shohei Ohtani’s historic 50/50 campaign was the undisputed headline of the Dodgers’ final run to the NL West title, the division crown could not have been claimed without Hernández’s contributions. In a regular season in which Freddie Freeman was only very good and Mookie Betts missed two months with a broken hand, Hernández proved to be the Dodgers’ most consistent source of offensive production not named Ohtani. He made his second career All-Star Game and was the surprise winner of the Home Run Derby, further raising his national profile.
Hernández was no longer a standout slugger for a fringe playoff contender, as he was in Toronto or Seattle; he was a driving force at the heart of a massive lineup for the team with baseball’s best record, a team that ultimately stormed through October en route to a World Series championship. Hernández delivered several huge swings to help LA beat the rival Padres in the NLDS, and he emerged after a quiet NLCS to drive in several more key runs in the World Series against the Yankees. A season that began with optimism that the talented outfielder could return to star form ended with Hernández in tears on the Dodger Stadium stage as he expressed his appreciation to an adoring fan base as part of a raucous championship celebration.
What went wrong for Hernández in Seattle?
Hernández’s dream season with the Dodgers makes his lone campaign in Seattle look even more like a miserable slog in retrospect. But it is incorrect to suggest that Hernández was outright bad as a sailor; his production was just wildly uneven.
On the surface, it’s not hard to see why Hernández’s 2023 was universally considered a bad year. He scored a career-high 211 times, had a career-low walk rate of 5.6% and finished with his lowest OPS (.741) since becoming an everyday player in 2018. But a closer look reveals that his performance on The Record with Seattle wasn’t a drop in production across the board, but rather the product of sky-high peaks and particularly unpleasant valleys.
This is critical to not only understanding why Hernández ended up in Los Angeles on a one-year deal, but also how he can move forward as he enters free agency for the second time at a much higher level.
The most obvious place to start – and the dominant narrative surrounding his struggles – is Hernández’s problems focusing on T-Mobile Park. This is something he’s talked openly about since leaving the Mariners, and the numbers don’t lie: Hernández hit .217/.263/.380 in home games, a far cry from his .295/.344/.486 line away from Seattle which better reflected his career standards in road races.
But the lopsided nature of Hernández’s performance in 2023 can be found in more than just his much-discussed separation between home and away. Hernández has always hit left-handed pitching much more consistently than right-handers (more on that later), but he was especially poor without platoon advantage in 2023: his .718 OPS against right-handers was the worst of its kind. career.
Look at how he performed against certain types of pitches, and another notable imbalance emerged: Hernández’s .435 wOBA against four-seam fastballs was tied with Kyle Tucker and Juan Soto for the ninth-best mark in the MLB, but his . 240 wOBA against sliders, sweepers and curveballs was among the worst marks among hitters who saw at least 500 such pitches.
The hot and cold motif was perhaps most exemplified by Hernández’s monthly production. In his career (including 2024), Hernández has had 30 months in which he got at least 80 plate appearances. Here’s where his OPS from each month of the 2023 season ranked among those 30:
Hernández somehow managed to pack both the best month of his career and four of his worst months into the same season.
Add it all up and Hernández hit the market last offseason looking like a particularly volatile commodity, especially as a corner player who offered limited defensive value. It wasn’t a complete disaster of a platform year, but it was enough of a step back in production and consistency from the Silver Slugger-worthy value he offered at his peak in Toronto that teams were wary of riding the roller coaster jump. seemingly present in his profile. In turn, Hernández entered free agency a year ago in a weaker position than expected — and his market reflected that.
What went well in LA?
A year later, Hernández re-enters the market having produced a much more complete campaign at the plate, with his performance as a Dodger being significantly steadier across the board.
Freed from the hitter-unfriendly confines of T-Mobile Park, Hernández excelled in his new home park (.884 OPS), the fairly bland Dodger Stadium, while remaining productive in road games (.800 OPS). His worst calendar month in 2024 – a .762 OPS in June – was still completely respectable. And his best month – an OPS of 1.050 in September – was one of the best of his career. He improved against breaking balls to a tasty .325 wOBA, while continuing to hit fastballs well, with a particularly impressive .420 wOBA against sinkers.
Hernández’s platoon splits were also favorable. His greatest strength remains his ability to pulverize lefties and virtually any hitter in the world. It’s no coincidence that he occasionally finished third against left-handed starters for the Dodgers and in October, even above a former MVP in Freeman; this has been an elite skill for Hernández for one long time. He owns a .902 OPS against left-handed pitching since becoming an everyday player in 2018 and a .963 since early 2021 – fourth in the MLB over that span behind only Aaron Judge, Paul Goldschmidt and Ketel Marte (min. . 500 plate appearances).
But while Hernández continued to pound the lefties with the Dodgers, his recovery against even-handed arms was even more encouraging after such a dismal break in Seattle. Hernández posted an .808 OPS against right-handers, his best mark in a full season, with a career-high 22 home runs against same-handers along the way.
All in all, the splits were much smaller. Concerns remain about his limited defensive contributions and his still-high strikeout rate as he ages, but Hernández the hitter has done a lot in 2024 to ease concerns about how his bat seemed popular a year ago to be.
What’s next for Hernández?
Where will the next chapter of Hernández’s career take place? He hasn’t been shy about his preference to stay with the Dodgers, but that will depend on a number of factors. The positional fit remains ideal, both because of how Hernández has excelled in his left field role and given GM Brandon Gomes’ recent comments that the team expects to move Mookie Betts back to the infield in 2025, which would also allow the other corner in the outfield opens. .
We also know that there won’t be a question as to whether LA can afford what Hernández is looking for. Rather, it will be a matter of how much the Dodgers’ front office prioritizes retaining their new favorite outfielder compared to some of the other bigger free-agent fish on the market, whether that means an epic bid. war with the New York clubs for the services of Juan Soto or pursuing another frontline arm like Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell or Max Fried. As evidenced by their hot-stove activity a year ago, being at the top of the market won’t necessarily prevent the Dodgers from keeping Hernández either – especially if he really wants to stay – but the more their focus turns elsewhere is targeted, the more likely it is. is that another suitor comes along with an offer that Hernández cannot refuse.
As for other potential landing spots, Boston and Baltimore have both reportedly shown early interest in Hernández as teams looking for right-handed power. Baltimore may lose another powerhouse in Anthony Santander, so replacing him with Hernández could be a wise strategy. The Red Sox and Angels reportedly offered Hernández two-year deals last winter before he opted for the Dodgers’ lucrative one-year offer, so it stands to reason that both teams will be involved again. Other big spenders like the Phillies, Giants and Mets could certainly use some offensive firepower in the outfield. Perhaps a rising Tigers club wants to add some veterans to an ultra-young lineup, or perhaps a different kind of reunion is in order: the Astros and Blue Jays could both use a left fielder.
At the very least, it’s safe to say that Hernández’s market will be much hotter during his second go-round in free agency. Whether that will land him back in Dodger blue remains to be seen, but what he’s accomplished in 2024 has undoubtedly put him in a position to definitively choose what’s best for him, rather than settling for what a depressed market dictates.
