According to independent reporter Francys Romero, the Dodgers are among the teams currently “monitoring” the market for outfielder Teoscar Hernandez, though they are not considered the favorite to ultimately land him. The report comes nearly two months after the club first expressed interest in the slugger’s services at the beginning of the offseason.
Of course, plenty has changed for the Dodgers since that initial report. L.A. has been by far the busiest club of the offseason to this point as they’ve landed top free agents Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto while also swinging a trade for and extending right-hander Tyler Glasnow. While the club’s flashiest acquisitions don’t overlap significantly with Hernandez, the Dodgers did acquire outfielder Manuel Margot as part of the Glasnow trade. With Margot now in the fold, the club appears likely to platoon him and veteran Jason Heyward (who re-signed with the club last month) in Hernandez’s native right field which cast at least some uncertainty on the club’s interest in his services.
Given the massive changes to the club’s roster in recent weeks, the Dodgers’ continued interest in Hernandez is somewhat notable even as they aren’t currently considered to be the favorite to land him. With Ohtani locked in as the club’s everyday DH, Heyward and Margot likely to man right field, and James Outman poised to start his sophomore season in center, Hernandez would likely wind up as L.A.’s everyday left fielder if he ultimately signed with the club.
The Dodgers have no established everyday left fielder, though the job is seemingly poised to go to veteran Chris Taylor if an external addition at the position isn’t made. Taylor put together a respectable season in 2023 that saw him slash a league average .237/.326/.420 while splitting time between shortstop, second base, third base, left field, and center field. If Hernandez or another regular outfielder is added, that would allow the Dodgers to keep Taylor in his current role as a semi-regular who shores up the club’s depth all around the diamond.
While the Dodgers sported MLB’s third-best offense last season with a team-wise wRC+ of 116, the club’s production in left field was actually well below average as David Peralta combined with Taylor to start all but 29 games at the position last year. The club’s collective production from left field was just 96, placing them 20th in the majors and bottom-five in the NL for the 2023 season. Hernandez, as a career 117 wRC+ hitter who slashed a whopping .283/.333/.519 from 2020-22, could prove to be a quality middle of the order bat for LA even after a down season in 2023. With that being said, even Hernandez’s diminished 105 wRC+ this past season would represent a fairly notable improvement over Peralta, who slashed just .259/.294/.381 in 422 trips to the plate last year.
That mix of a relatively stable floor and tantalizing upside earned Hernandez the 12th spot on MLBTR’s annual Top 50 MLB free agents list, where we projected him for a four-year, $80M contract. While that’s far from an insignificant sum, it’s a relative pittance to a club that’s committed over $1 billion total to Ohtani and Yamamoto alone, even as deferred money lowers the present-day financial impact of those deals. RosterResource currently projects the Dodgers for a $286M payroll in 2024 but they figure have far more flexibility than that franchise-record figure would indicate thanks to the massive deferrals in Ohtani’s contract, which will pay him just $2M in 2024.
Of course, the Dodgers are far from the only club known to be interested in Hernandez with both the club’s local rivals in Anaheim and the Red Sox among those pursuing the 31-year-old slugger. On the other hand, Hernandez is not the only corner bat available, though he figures to be a better fit for the Dodgers than Jorge Soler thanks to Ohtani’s presence at DH while offering more impact than the likes of Adam Duvall and Tommy Pham.
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