Dodgers Didn't Expect to Cut Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes This Early in Season

So, what changed?

“We didn’t feel like coming into the season this was something that we would necessarily be doing in May,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told reporters Sunday. “But you learn things and things change and things evolve and play out. We just have a lot more information at this point in May than we do before the season. I wouldn’t say it was something that we thought was fait accompli, and was necessarily going to happen. But with where we were, all things factored in, while not easy we felt like it was the right thing to do.”

Looking at Barnes' and Taylor's hitting performance in a vacuum ignores a critical factor: Each was being pushed for playing time in a way they previously were not.

Rookie infielder Hyeseong Kim has a .452/.485/.581 slash line in 14 games. No one expects Kim to sustain that performance, but neither did the Dodgers guarantee him $12.5 million to play for Oklahoma City — where he was arguably the best defensive and offensive player on the Triple-A Comets' roster.

Dalton Rushing, the top prospect in the organization, was also becoming increasingly difficult to stash in the minor leagues. He had a .938 OPS in Oklahoma City while seeing time at catcher, first base and left field. He's 4 for 10 with a walk and a double in his first three games.

Much of the information the Dodgers did not have in March revolved around Kim and Rushing. Now that the two rookies (Kim is 26, Rushing 24) have shown they can hit major league pitching and adapt to a variety of positions, keeping them buried in the Pacific Coast League was a tougher decision to defend.