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With the Dodgers arguably in need of at least two outfielders — due to Mookie Betts returning to the dirt — the team looked to fill in one of the few remaining holes on their 2025 roster by surprisingly signing Michael Conforto to a one-year, $17 million contract.
Michael Conforto is signing a one-year, $17M deal with the Dodgers, per source.
— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) December 9, 2024
Michael Conforto's $17-million deal with #Dodgers includes an $8.5-million signing bonus. https://t.co/KneKfqILGR
— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) December 9, 2024
After an up-and-down seven years with the Mets where he made an All-Star team and posted a .255/.356/.468/.824 line, he missed the entire 2022 season after undergoing shoulder surgery. He returned in 2023 on a two-year deal with the Giants where he seemed notably (and perhaps predictably) diminished, putting up a .238/.322/.418/.740 line for a 105 wRC+. Combined with below-average baserunning and defense, he put up about 2 WAR in the last two years.
All of that makes him a surprising choice for the Dodgers, but he did post a .352 xwOBA in 2024 compared to his .327 actual wOBA, which would put him up near Teoscar Hernandez‘s 2024 production. Furthermore, the last time he topped 40% in HardHit% was his 2017 All-Star season, and he had a career-high (in a full season) of 45.8% last year. Add on that he carried a 133 wRC+ away from the Giants and a 83 wRC+ at home, and one can see the vision here. Some combination of the Giants park and bad luck could’ve led to a relatively mediocre season on paper that deserved better. Additionally, he does have significant splits (not in 2024, tho), with an .838 OPS against RHP and .705 OPS against lefties in his career, so finding better matchups for him seems likely. Also, he’ll be three years removed from his shoulder surgery in 2025, an injury that notoriously takes time for hitters to regain strength.
Michael Conforto (signed by LAD) is a lefty power bat that had excellent underlying metrics in 2024 while posting a 112 wRC+ across 488 PA
— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) December 9, 2024
This is a smart acquisition by the Dodgers https://t.co/jsfoIZYGHm pic.twitter.com/OsmsQy4Tuf
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As far as the contract goes, the predictions from The Athletic, ESPN, FanGraphs, and MLB Trade Rumors were mostly similar to one another.
- The Athletic: 1 year, $10 million
- ESPN: 1 year, $15 million
- FanGraphs: 1 year, $10 million
- MLBTR: 2 years, $18 million
That averaged out to a 1.25-year deal worth $13.25 million for an AAV of $10.6 million, so he ended up getting almost double what was expected. To be fair, most of these projections seem to have underestimated the market so far.
From a value perspective, he’s coming off back-to-back mediocre seasons and he’s being paid like a league-average regular, which seems like a fair expectation of him going forward. It’s a signing that basically requires one to have faith in the Dodgers front office because there’s not a ton to get excited about here other than it carries low risk with some injury bounceback upside in his age-32 season.
The potential opportunity cost here seems to be the chance at signing Juan Soto, which would be a massive loss for most teams, and kinda still is for the Dodgers since he’s a generational hitting talent. That said, the Dodgers always seemed to be on the outside looking in and more just doing due diligence to make sure things didn’t get weird. The bigger issue is that he takes up a roster spot, and while the Dodgers are reportedly still involved on Teoscar, a team with money to spend not filling the hole with one of the better players on the market seems like a potential mistake. Currently, the outfield is Conforto, Pages, Outman, Taylor, and some amount of Rushing and Edman, which definitely doesn’t seem to be the best they could do.
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Honestly, the signing is mostly a bit surprising for now. Conforto’s contract isn’t all that relevant, as it’s difficult to complain about such a low-risk deal, but the roster spot is valuable and he’s likely expected to take put a good chunk of plate appearances. Thus, on paper right now he represents a downgrade from what the Dodgers had last year, and how much this makes sense probably depends on what they end up doing with Teoscar or some other option in the outfield. All of this is more understandable if Conforto ends up occupying the potential matchup/platoon spot as an upside guy instead of trying to replace the middle-of-the-order bat whose name is usually written in pen in the lineup. Otherwise, it sorta requires a lot of factors to break right for the Dodgers and faith in the front office/coaches, though to be fair, faith in them has usually ended up being justified.
