Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
If you’ve watched any Dodger baseball lately, well, I’m sorry. It’s been rough of late. And it seems like what always happens is the bats are struggling.
Here’s how the Dodgers’ hitters have performed since the All-Star break:
| Player | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
| Shohei Ohtani | .279 | .339 | .519 | 121 |
| Freddie Freeman | .340 | .381 | .381 | 113 |
| Max Muncy | .210 | .297 | .481 | 109 |
| Andy Pages | .269 | .331 | .398 | 103 |
| Teoscar Hernandez | .264 | .297 | .425 | 98 |
| Mookie Betts | .237 | .288 | .392 | 85 |
| Kyle Tucker | .195 | .295 | .366 | 82 |
| Tommy Edman | .217 | .280 | .359 | 78 |
That’s … ugly. Ohtani has been fine but not Ohtani-esque. Freeman has turned into a singles’ hitter. Muncy has turned into a modern-day Rob Deer. Pages has cooled off considerably. Hernandez hasn’t put together a good stretch so far. Betts has been so inconsistent, as has Tucker. Edman started off his season hot before cooling off a lot.
The old guys aren’t performing well as the calendar continues to turn. The average age of the Dodgers’ regulars above is 31.6 years old. That’s helped slightly by Pages being 25 and Tucker being 29. Everyone else is on the wrong side of 30. We knew this was something the Dodgers were hoping to combat prior to the season, which is probably why they opted to give Tucker the contract that they did. But his struggles, coupled with the old guys wearing down in the dog days, has created a more urgent situation for the Dodgers.
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Let’s time travel back to 2014. The Dodgers traded for Jimmy Rollins to fill the void left by Hanley Ramirez leaving for Boston in free agency. With a consensus No. 1 prospect in the minors in Corey Seager, everyone (including Rollins) knew he was a short-timer in Los Angeles. An Opening Day, game-winning 3-run home run by Rollins had Dodger fans euphoric. Rollins could do no wrong. That lasted all of a day, as Rollins would perform as a you might expect a 36-year-old shortstop who had one more year in the majors before retiring. He hit .224/.285/.358 and ended up losing his job in September to Seager.
Seager, 21 at the time, hit .337/.425/.561 in September as he entrenched himself as the Dodgers’ starting shortstop until he would leave for the Texas in free agency. He earned the promotion by hitting .293/.344/.487 and playing solid enough defense at shortstop.
Enter Josue De Paula.
The Dodgers signed De Paula out of the Dominican Republic (he was born in Brooklyn) for $397,500. He has transformed himself from a solid hitting prospect with a little pop to a legitimate middle-of-the-order hitter due to a great eye at the plate and still-developing power.
The Dodgers need an infusion of youth and energy. De Paula, 21, isn’t the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball like Seager was, but is is a consensus Top 10 prospect in the sport, and the Dodgers need a jolt.
The Dodgers’ left field, as a collective, have underperformed massively this season. They’re hitting .230/.300/.363 with an 84 wRC+ — good for 25th-best (or 5th-worst) in MLB. Teoscar Hernandez has garnered most of the playing time in left field, with Alex Call and Tommy Edman logging fewer than 50 plate appearances each while playing there. The parallels between Hernandez and Rollins aren’t perfect, but there are a lot of similarities that cannot be denied.
De Paula is hitting .313/.413/.547 with Double-A Tulsa. He has almost as many walks (69) as strikeouts (71) and has 21 home runs and 31 doubles. He has split his time almost evenly between left- and right field this season, but even despite Tucker’s struggles, I don’t see him taking plate appearances away from him. Hernandez, is a different story.
The argument for De Paula would be he’s left-handed and could, at worst, be the strong-side of a platoon with Hernandez (Teo or Enrique) in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle. He has a 1.027 OPS against right-handers in the minors this season, against a .749 OPS against lefties. It might be the perfect time to see if De Paula can handle The Show at 21, since he’ll likely be ticketed for Los Angeles in some fashion in 2027.
I’m not concerned with his lack of Triple-A appearances, as the Pacific Coast League isn’t a great barometer for determining how good a hitting prospect is, and there’s a lot of Quad-A talent there. He’s probably facing higher-ceiling pitching in the Texas League, believe it or not. However, the biggest difference between Double-A and Triple-A is the ball used. Offensive production is up in the Texas League this year, and it’s a different ball than the one used in Triple-A and at the MLB level. I’m not sure just how much (if at all) that has impacted De Paula’s numbers this season, but it isn’t like he has hit in Coors Field for every game of the season.
The most concerning part of a potential promotion is his defense. “He can’t be any worse than Teo, right?” About that…
De Paula isn’t exactly known for his glove. He routinely earns 40-grade evaluations for his defense, which is below-average. And that’s for future value. Some outlets (FanGraphs) has his current defense rated a 20, the worst on the 20-80 scale. For all the crap Hernandez gets for his defense, here are his rankings in the three main defensive stats:
- -1 DRS (defensive runs saved)
- – 3 OAA (outs above average)
- -2 FRV (fielding run value)
He also has a reasonably strong arm, with an average throw velocity of 87.6 MPH. He ain’t perfect, but he’s our Teo.
If De Paula could even match the numbers above, it’d be a huge win. It’d also be a huge surprise, as he’ll never be known for his glove.
For his part, he has put in the work to try to improve, including training a bit with Jason Heyward, one of the best defensive corner outfielders in MLB history.
#Dodgers Jason Heyward on the field working with top prospect Josue De Paula in the outfield. Great opportunity for De Paula. #DodgersProspects @Dodgers #DodgersPlayerDevelopment pic.twitter.com/HmN0wMwMlq
— Dodgers_After_Duty (@msalas24) August 16, 2026
Either way, the Dodgers clearly think it’s an issue that needs attention.
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During the Andrew Friedman era, the Dodgers haven’t been shy about promoting top position player prospects at the age of 21. The aforementioned Seager debuted at 21, but so did Cody Bellinger and Alex Verdugo. Bellinger was as highly touted as De Paula, but Verdugo was not. With the Dodgers’ struggles at the plate recently, starting the clock a little early on De Paula might not be the worst idea. Also, he’d keep his prospect promotion incentive/rookie status for 2027, since the deadline for that just passed recently.
James Tibbs III might make more sense at first glance, as he has performed at a high level at Triple-A all season, has almost even splits between lefties and righties and is a little bit older than De Paula (23). But his ceiling isn’t as high and he doesn’t need to be added to the 40-man roster until after next season, whereas De Paula will be Rule 5 Draft-eligible after this season. If you’re gonna go big, go really big.
Hell, I’d take Tibbs at this point if they wanted to start a strict platoon with Teo.
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I will admit, this is a bit of a reactionary thought based on how the Dodgers have been performing lately. It’s hard to see them out there just kinda going through the motions. I know they’re not just doing that, but it’s what it looks like while viewing. An infusion of youth and energy in the form of the team’s best offensive prospect since Will Smith might not be the worst thing at this moment. If he doesn’t fare well, the experiment can be ended without much consequence. I don’t think a bad 3-4 week stretch is going to derail De Paula for the rest of his career. If he takes off, then the front office looks even more brilliant.
If the Dodgers were playing well — not necessarily winning, but at least being competitive — this would be a different story. But they aren’t and, with the trade deadline having come and gone, the only way to inject anything new into the team is via the minor-league system. They’ve tasked 21-year-old position player prospects with this kind of responsibility before, so why not roll the dice again?
