One week into Major League Baseball’s offseason, the Dodgers are still in the process of finalizing their plans for this upcoming winter.
They’re admittedly playing “a little bit of catch-up going on right now,” as general manager Brandon Gomes put it — but are happy to be after spending the last month winning the World Series.
“Very good problem for us to have,” Gomes said Wednesday. “Happily trade that every year.”
Still, the Dodgers’ offseason did begin to come into focus at this week’s general manager meetings at the JW Marriott outside of San Antonio.
Read more: Shohei Ohtani has surgery to fix torn labrum, expected to be ready for spring training
And with the hot stove set to fully heat up over the rest of this month, here are a few takeaways on where the team stands.
Mookie Betts back to infield
The big news from Gomes’ media session on Wednesday: Mookie Betts is likely heading back to the infield in 2025.
Betts, of course, started this season as the Dodgers’ everyday shortstop after playing the infield part time (mostly at second base) in 2023. He moved back to his traditional spot in right field after recovering from a broken hand in August, with both him and the team deciding it was what best fit their roster.
Now, however, the club’s “assumption,” as Gomes put it, is that Betts will return to the dirt next season, though exactly how that will look is not yet “set in stone.”
“I know the toll on the body is less in the infield for him,” Gomes said of Betts, a 32-year-old veteran with six career Gold Gloves in right field. “But the beauty of Mookie is [he’s] the most selfless superstar we’ve ever been around. And that permeates through the team.”
Betts’ expected move, which he and the team have discussed in recent weeks, will further emphasize one of the Dodgers’ biggest needs this winter: corner outfielders.
The easiest way to address that would be by re-signing Teoscar Hernández, who had a resurgent season with the Dodgers in 2024 and enters free agency looking for a longer-term deal than the one-year, $23.5-million contract he signed to come to Los Angeles last offseason.
The move could also make the Dodgers more of a player in the Juan Soto sweepstakes, though it’s still unclear if the club will be willing to pay the $600 million or more likely to be needed to land the 26-year-old superstar.
If Betts primarily plays second base — the team does have other shortstop options in Tommy Edman and Miguel Rojas — that could cut significantly into Gavin Lux’s role, too, after his strong finish to 2024.
Asked what this means for Lux, Gomes was coy.
“Gavin’s been a huge part of our success,” he said. “Especially in the second half getting over the ACL injury [that sidelined him for all of 2023], he was a huge part of our team. I think Mookie’s ability to play so many places is only beneficial for us.”
Surgery complicates Shohei Ohtani’s pitching timeline
Shohei Ohtani was already uncertain to be ready to pitch by opening day next year, after he and the team decided to delay the completion of his pitching rehab program (including facing hitters) until after the end of the playoffs.
After he underwent labrum surgery on his non-throwing shoulder Tuesday, however, that possibility is looking increasingly unlikely.
Though Ohtani’s surgery won’t have any “big-picture” impact on him as a pitcher next year, Gomes said, it is likely to further complicate his pitching plan for this offseason, since he will now need added rehab on his left shoulder over the next couple of weeks.
While that will probably rule Ohtani out from pitching in his home country of Japan when the Dodgers open their season in Tokyo next March — he should still be ready to hit by then — it won’t change much else about his return to two-way duties in 2025. Already, he was likely to be on an innings limit coming off last year’s Tommy John revision surgery. And as Gomes reiterated Wednesday, the Dodgers’ main focus is on having Ohtani “at his peak come the biggest games of the year” next October.
Starting pitching options
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 monitoring star Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki, too.
A 23-year-old right-hander with a triple-digit fastball and career 2.02 ERA in his native country’s Nippon Professional Baseball league, it’s uncertain if Sasaki will be posted for MLB clubs to sign this offseason. But if he is, he will come as a bargain, since league rules for international free agents under the age of 25 would restrict him to signing only a minor league contract with a modest signing bonus (similar to when Ohtani, then also 23, signed with the Angels for $2.3 million in 2017).
Sasaki, whom Gomes declined to discuss Wednesday since he is still under club control in Japan, has been long coveted by the Dodgers and heavily scouted by their executives in recent years.
And with the Dodgers considered favorites to sign him if he does come to MLB this winter, he could represent the front office’s dream acquisition: A young, gifted, cost-controlled pitcher to bolster a starting rotation beset by injuries in recent years.
The Dodgers, of course, will have other avenues if Sasaki doesn’t become their latest Japanese acquisition.
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 play 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 fetch the kind of nine-figure contract that eluded him last offseason, his track record of durable success (he is 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 pivot to other big names.
Corbin Burnes is a former Cy Young winner whom the Dodgers had trade interest in last year, though is projected to command even more money than Snell, which might price him out of the Dodgers’ plans.
Max Fried is a Harvard-Westlake product who has a career 3.25 ERA, but also battled forearm injuries the last 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’ key trade deadline acquisition this past year), Nathan Eovaldi (a veteran the Dodgers were monitoring at the trade deadline before trading for Flaherty), Yusei Kikuchi, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino.
And then there’s Walker Buehler, whom the Dodgers remain interested in re-signing even after declining to extend him a one-year, $21-million qualifying offer this week.
The Dodgers could be open to still paying Buehler something 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, “does not go lost on us.”
Read more: ‘Run it back.’ Will Dodgers keep roster core together for World Series defense?
At the same time, however, it’s possible Buehler could fetch proposals beyond what the Dodgers are willing to match, especially since he is not encumbered by the qualifying offer (which, if he had declined, would have required other teams to forfeit draft compensation to sign him).
Like most things this time of year, the Dodgers remain in wait-and-see mode for now.
Other offseason notes
In addition to Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw (who is still expected to re-sign with the team) and Miguel Rojas (who had his club option for next year picked up) were in need of surgery this offseason, with Kershaw getting a toe and knee procedure on Wednesday and Rojas scheduled for an adductor surgery in the coming weeks.
Other than that, however, Gomes said the team is not anticipating any other players needing procedures. Tyler Glasnow recently told Foul Territory that his season-ending elbow injury is “pretty much healed.” Freddie Freeman won’t need to go under the knife for his broken rib cartilage, either. “Freddie needs rest,” Gomes joked. “Not surgery.”
Meanwhile, the Dodgers will work this offseason on a contract extension with manager Dave Roberts, Gomes said, but will first focus on retooling the roster. Roberts’ current deal is set to expire at the end of next season.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
