Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Second base. The keystone. The pivot. It’s one of the more overlooked positions on the baseball field. For a while in the past decade or two, teams would use that position to “hide” players who weren’t traditional second basemen, but their bats were valuable enough to keep in the lineup — the Dodgers are no exception (hello, Max Muncy).
Looking at the Dodgers’ depth chart at second base, it’s not great.
Those are guys on the 40-man roster. Edman is best used as a utility player (if his ankle allows), while Kim’s Statcast profile doesn’t exactly depict a starting MLB second baseman (his defense is legit, though). Rojas is retiring after this season and the verdict is still out on Freeland, who might be better at shortstop.
Speaking of Edman, outside of his strong 2024 postseason that included the NLCS MVP, he’s been below-average as a Dodger — .229/.280/.392, 85 wRC+. It’s marginally better if you filter the times he has played second base — .249/.292/.418, 96 wRC+, but he still hasn’t been good. Yes, he dealt with an ankle injury that nagged him basically the whole season, but this could also be a case of overexposure, as he had just one full-season with a wRC+ of better than 100 (106 in 2022) as a Cardinal, so maybe he’s just not that good. The problem is, the Dodgers are paying him like a 500-plus plate-appearance guy, so he’s going to find his way onto the diamond one way or another.
But if you look at this current era (since 2013) of Dodger baseball, they’ve gotten a lot of production out of second base. Here are their ranks in MLB since ’13:
- .329 OBP – 6th
- .319 wOBA – 7th
- 103 wRC+ – 6th
- 35.0 fWAR – 8th
- 463 DRS – 1st (I’m surprised, too!)
It feels like this is a bit misleading, or, at the very least, not a true representation of what the Dodgers have done with the position over the last 13 seasons, especially if you look at the last two seasons.
- .313 OBP – 12th
- .305 wOBA – 9th
- 95 wRC+ – 15th
- 5.3 fWAR – 10th
- 88 DRS – 6th
Definitely a bit of a fall off, and it’s easy to see why. They didn’t have All-Star/MVP/future Hall of Famers moonlighting at the position in 2024 and 2025. And with the current depth chart, those numbers aren’t terribly likely to improve.
Mookie Betts‘ 4.5 WAR as a second baseman is just behind Gavin Lux‘s 4.6. The rub? Betts compiled that number in 200 fewer games than Lux, thanks to an MVP-caliber 2023 season. Trea Turner spent 48 games as the Dodgers’ second baseman after being acquired from the Nationals at the 2021 trade deadline before moving back to shortstop in 2022. He posted a 2.4 WAR in that time. The aforementioned Muncy spent basically a full season (151) games at second and was perfectly Muncyan — .230/.362/.484, 128 wRC+, 4.1 WAR. That’s not to mention the likes of Dee Strange-Gordon (3.6 WAR), Chris Taylor (3.5), Howie Kendrick (3.1), Mark Ellis (1.5), Chase Utley (1.5), Rojas (1.2) and Edman (1.2). Some of these guys were either developed at different positions or are utility players who played a fair share of second base.
In the minors, the cupboard is a bit bare. Yes, the Dodgers have a lot of shortstop prospects who could eventually move to second base, as Betts isn’t going to play forever (unfortunately). Those guys include Kellon Lindsey, Emil Morales, Joendry Vargas as well as fringe-MLBers/prospects like Austin Gauthier, Sean McLain and Noah Miller. However, none of them are sure bets (even if Morales is the best of the lot) of being long-term solutions at second.
It isn’t like the Dodgers haven’t tried to address the position. They’ve made trades (Brian Dozier, Kendrick, Logan Forsythe, Utley), free-agent signings (Ellis, Kim) and internal development (Gordon, Lux, Miguel Vargas). There hasn’t been a long-term solution at the position. Not every organization can have an Ozzie Albies, Jose Altuve (despite being a cheater), Ketel Marte or Marcus Semien. Perhaps that’s why the Dodgers are in the Bo Bichette market and have even exchanged figures. Or maybe that’s why they seem more interested in Brendan Donovan than you’d think.
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Maybe second base for the Dodgers doesn’t need to have a long-term mainstay. They’ve won three championships, five pennants and 12 of 13 division titles in this current run with the amalgam of players they’ve used at second base. And with the star power already in-house, they don’t necessarily need an All-Star-caliber player at the position. However, just how good would Bichette look at second, turning double plays with Betts and hitting line drives all over Dodger Stadium?
It’s not terribly likely they sign Bichette, but it also isn’t a zero. Trading for Donovan seems more likely of the two, partly because of the financial commitment and the fact Donovan would provide much more versatility than signing Bichette to, basically, play one position. The even more likely move is no move at all to address second base and use those resources to find an outfielder. But if they bring in either Bichette or Donovan (or someone else we haven’t heard about), the Dodgers could solve second base for, at minimum, the next few years. Then, the Dodgers can focus their second base efforts on third base, because, like Mookie, Muncy won’t be around forever, either.
