A week into the Major League Baseball offseason, the Dodgers are still finalizing their plans for next winter.
While they’re playing “a little bit of catching up right now,” as general manager Brandon Gomes put it, they’re happy about it after winning the World Series this past month.
“A very good problem for us,” Gomes said on Wednesday. “Like to do that every year.”
Still, the Dodgers’ offseason began to come into clear focus during this week’s general managers meetings at the JW Marriott outside San Antonio.
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And with the hot stove fully heating up for the rest of this month, here are some insights into where the team stands.
Mookie Betts returns to the infield
The big news from Gomes’ media session on Wednesday: Mookie Betts will likely return to the infield in 2025.
Betts, of course, started this season as the Dodgers’ everyday shortstop after playing part-time in the infield (mostly at second base) in 2023. He returned to his traditional spot in right field after recovering from a broken hand in August, with both he and the team deciding it was the best fit for their roster.
Now the club’s ‘assumption’, as Gomes put it, is that Betts will return to the field next season, although exactly what that will look like is not yet ‘set in stone’.
“I know the toll on the body for him is less in the infield,” Gomes said of Betts, a 32-year-old veteran with six Gold Gloves in right field. “But the beauty of Mookie is [he’s] the most selfless superstar we’ve ever seen. And that permeates the entire team.”
Betts’ expected move, which he and the team have discussed in recent weeks, will further highlight one of the Dodgers’ biggest needs this winter: corner outfielders.
The easiest way to address that would be to re-sign Teoscar Hernández, who had a resurgent season with the Dodgers in 2024 and is heading to free agency looking for a longer-term contract than the one-year, $23 deal. 5 million that he signed. to Los Angeles last season.
The move could also make the Dodgers more of a player in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, although it’s still unclear whether the club will be willing to pay the $600 million or more that will likely be needed to land the 26-year-old superstar to get.
If Betts plays primarily at second base — the team has other shortstop options in Tommy Edman and Miguel Rojas — that could also cut into Gavin Lux’s role significantly after his strong finish in 2024.
When asked what this means for Lux, Gomes was coy.
“Gavin has been a big part of our success,” he said. “Especially in the second half, when I got over the cruciate ligament injury [that sidelined him for all of 2023]he was a big part of our team. I think Mookie’s ability to play in so many places can only be beneficial for us.”
Starting pitching opportunities
The Dodgers’ other big need this offseason, Gomes confirmed Wednesday, is starting pitching.
And while the free-agent market is rich with veteran talent, the team is also keeping an eye on Japanese star pitcher Roki Sasaki.
A 23-year-old right-hander with a triple-digit fastball and a career 2.02 ERA in his native country’s Nippon Professional Baseball league, it is uncertain whether Sasaki will be cleared for MLB clubs to sign this offseason. But if he does, he’ll be a steal, as league rules for international free agents under 25 would limit him to signing just a minor league contract with a modest signing bonus (similar to when Shohei Ohtani, then also 23, signed with the Angels for $2.3 million in 2017).
Sasaki, who Gomes declined to discuss on Wednesday because he is still under club control in Japan, has long been coveted by the Dodgers and heavily scouted by their executives in recent years.
And with the Dodgers considered the favorite to sign him if he comes to MLB this winter, he could represent the front office’s dream signing: a young, gifted, cost-controlled pitcher to bolster a starting rotation that has been ravaged in recent years due to injuries.
The Dodgers will obviously have other options if Sasaki doesn’t become their newest Japanese signing.
Two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell would be the most obvious name for the Dodgers to pursue. Last spring, the team made a late move for the left-hander before he signed with the San Francisco Giants. And even though the soon-to-be 32-year-old is expected to land the kind of nine-figure contract that eluded him last offseason, his track record of sustained success (he’s ranked in the top 15 in the majors in both ERA and starts) since 2017) should make him a priority target for the Dodgers again this winter.
If not Snell, the Dodgers could move on to other big names.
Corbin Burnes is a former Cy Young winner who the Dodgers had trade interest in last year, though he is expected to acquire even more money than Snell, which could take him out of the Dodgers’ plans.
Max Fried is a Harvard-Westlake product with a career 3.25 ERA, but has also struggled with forearm injuries over the past two seasons, something the Dodgers will have to weigh given the other health-related question marks already populating their pitching staff.
The next tier of free-agent starters includes Jack Flaherty (the Dodgers’ most important acquisition at the trade deadline this past year), Nathan Eovaldi (a veteran the Dodgers were eyeing at the trade deadline before trading for Flaherty), Yusei Kikuchi , Sean Manaea and Luis Severino.
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And then there’s Walker Buehler, who the Dodgers remain interested in re-signing even after denying him a one-year, $21 million qualifying offer this week.
The Dodgers could be open to paying Buehler something else in that ballpark depending on how the rest of his market develops. And Gomes emphasized that Buehler’s contributions in the postseason, including closing out Game 5 of the World Series on one day of rest, “are not lost on us.”
At the same time, however, it’s possible that Buehler could make proposals beyond what the Dodgers are willing to match, especially since he’s unencumbered by the qualifying offer (which, had he rejected, would have required other teams to accept the draft compensation would forfeit) sign him).
Like most things this time of year, the Dodgers remain in wait-and-see mode for now.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
