Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
As the minor-league season winds down, it only seems appropriate to have a prospect-heavy roundup as well. Of course, one of those prospects is soon to make his debut, and a lot will revolve around Josue De Paula here … plus that Shohei Ohtani guy.
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FanGraphs: In what might become their greatest obstacle to a three-peat, it’s unclear at the moment just how much Shohei Ohtani will be able to contribute in the playoffs. Not because of what he did just before hitting the IL, but really since it was first revealed he was hurting.
This is Ohtani’s rolling average bat speed over a 50-plate appearance span. You want to know why he’s so good? It’s because of that gorgeous, Griffeyesque lefty power stroke. In 2023, the first year Baseball Savant had bat tracking data, Ohtani was second in the league in average bat speed. The only guy ahead of him was Giancarlo Stanton, who can swing a steel girder faster than most people can swing a bat. Among mortals, Ohtani had the fastest bat in the league.
In 2024, he was eighth. Last year, he was 16th out of 225 qualified hitters, which is still terrific. Junior Caminero, Nick Kurtz, and James Wood were not on this leaderboard in 2023, so I wouldn’t read too much into those rankings.
This year, Ohtani is 41st in bat speed, out of 201 qualified batters. The y-axis on that bat speed graph isn’t especially friendly to the point I was going to make, so I’ll just spell it out. On July 24, Ohtani’s rolling 50-PA average bat speed went below his previous career low and stayed there for the rest of the month. Ohtani started swinging the bat harder in August, but in the past week that average dropped from 75.3 mph to 74.0.
A lot of evidence tracking his decline with the bat this season being injury related, mostly starting from the initial revelation and then worsening of late.
Baseball Prospectus: As far as his “replacement”, here’s glowing report on JDP’s bat, but echoing the concerns of many in terms of his defense/position, where that prevents him from being the top overall prospect in the majors.
He’s good at staying back on offspeed, but is quick inside as well, and it’s hard to find a spot in the zone where you can beat him. Coming into the season, the two main knocks on de Paula at the plate were his passivity and middling game power. But he jumped his swing rate while also upping his overall contact rate (it’s well-above-average now) and…well, he hit 27 home runs in 120 minor league games. de Paula has arguably the best offensive tools in the minors and it’s hard to find another prospect with a plus hit and plus-plus power projection unless you really buy into Sebastian Walcott’s new swing after a month of DHing.
Baseball America: Continuing with the bat, comps with Kevin McGonigle is definitely What You Want if you’re a Dodgers fan.
Dig a bit deeper and it gets even better. De Paula’s in-zone miss rate this year is just under 9%. His overall miss rate is 15%. He has an above-average 22% chase rate, and well above-average 105 mph 90th percentile exit velocity.
You very rarely see that kind of well-rounded profile combining extreme contact ability, excellent plate discipline and real power. In fact, the player from last year’s minor leagues he most resembles is Kevin McGonigle, the best hitting rookie in baseball in 2026.
The Athletic: As for the aforementioned defensive concerns, well the mentorship from former Dodger Jason Heyward of prospect Josue De Paula has been highlighted before, but this story provides a more specific look at things.
The five-time Gold Glove winner has spent much of his time with De Paula in the outfield. The two have gone through pre-pitch setups and cues that work on their similar frames and profiles — Heyward is 6-foot-5 and wire-strong compared to De Paula’s 6-foot-3, but both carry their long limbs similarly when they move.
Heyward can offer technical advice, such as how to get off the ball with good jumps, how to read swings, or how to anticipate the right bases to throw to. But Heyward’s focus has been primarily on De Paula’s intent and preparation.
“I think it’s just more about making him aware of what it looks like, what it feels like,” Heyward said. “Give him something else to go off of. Because it’s one thing for anyone to hear, ‘Hey, this should look like this’ or ‘This is what’s been asked of you.’ I think it’s more of what we can do to show him and allow him to feel like this is what this rep looks like. … This is how this is going to feel. This is how your routine is going to feel.
When even in a story like this the bar is set at “passable corner outfielder”, you get a sense for what the organization’s concern is about JDP’s game at the moment.
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ESPN: Back to the rest of the farm system, Kiley McDaniel has the farm system of the Dodgers in a virtual deadlock for second-best in baseball, valued at $542.09 million.
If the Dodgers didn’t make the Tarik Skubal trade, they would have the top-ranked farm system in baseball, but since they did make the move, they fall into a near three-way tie for second.
Their outfield depth was mentioned a lot leading up to the trade, and Zyhir Hope was dealt from that surplus, but there are still eight outfielders in their top 15 prospects along with two third basemen who might end up moving to a corner outfield spot.
On the pitching side, the rise of Christian Zazueta and Zach Root make up for dealing River Ryan and seeing Jackson Ferris take a step back this season.
Well, that seems good.
TJStats: Looking at prospects he’s higher and lower on compared to the consensus finds Chase Harlan and Charles Davalan on the higher side and Mike Sirota on the lower side.
Sirota has a 12% chase rate in both High-A and Double-A in 2026 while posting a Z-Swing% that does not completely paralyze him at the plate. He gets heralded for his outlier swing decisions, but he is running a 78% Z-Contact rate and currently has a 44% whiff rate against offspeed pitches.
Thought the zone contact concerns for Sirota were at least interesting given that people have been wanting him with the Dodgers already.
Baseball Prospectus: Tyler Gough, the prospect acquired from the Mariners for Robinson Ortiz, gets a bit of shine for his recent stellar run.
Well, Gough has posted a sub-2.00 ERA in 16 outings, and while he’s been old for every stop along the way, the stuff looks major-league quality. Gough’s fastball sits in the low-90s with good, flat carry, and he backs it with an above-average change-up. That’s more than enough to dominate either A-ball level, and he’s done just that. He also has a snappy, downer 12-6 curve that runs from the low-70s to the high-70s. I do like it more than most curves in this velocity range, although I do wonder how many times he will be able to show it to better hitters across and at-bat or outing, as he has to slow it down to really get the pitch to consistently dive out of the zone. Gough also mixes in the occasional hard cutterish slider or sliderish cutter, but he’s primarily a fastball/change starter who could really use a couple more ticks on both to project as a more clear cut major league starter. Perhaps he gets that further off surgery, but if not, there might be room for Gough to have a Landon Knack role in Los Angeles regardless.
Probably won’t be interpreted as the most promising of comps, but the reality is that’s a nice potential floor for most prospects.
TJStats: There are a lot of quality prospects who can get a bit lost in the stacked system of the Dodgers, and Jake Gelof has definitely been one of them.
Jake Gelof, brother of Athletics 2B Zack, is a force to be reckoned with in AA this season as he smacked 32 HR while posting a .926 OPS. This explosion of power is supported by some of the strongest batted ball metrics at the level, including a 106.7 mph EV90 and 47.5 HardHit%, and a prolific pull-air approach. Like many sluggers with his archetype, Gelof has had trouble with swing and miss this season, most notably against offspeed pitches.
Gelof will be Rule 5 eligible at the end of the season and his performance this year virtually guarantees his protection.
The last line was a bit of a surprise. The Dodgers have a 40-man roster crunch and I assumed he might be a popular potential pick, but perhaps his emergence has indeed moved the needle enough.
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Down On The Farm: Thought this was an interesting interrogation of whether a stronger arm in right field really matters … and how much it does.
Arm strength does appear to matter more in right field, where an additional mile per hour of velocity, on average, buys you 0.40 runs of value per season, as opposed to about 0.27 in left.
While it does seem that it is useful to, all else equal, put your best arm in right as opposed to left, the magnitude of the impact is very small: there is no world in which getting this decision right or wrong leads to even a half-WAR swing throughout a season.
It should be an afterthought, basically. Just run your best guys out there.
Foundations On The Field: Thinking about command as a cloud and investigating how much impact the catcher has on it.
Often when we think about controlling a pitch we load everything onto the pitcher. What the OpenCommand data suggests is that the catcher holds a decent-sized lever too, one he can pull pitch to pitch, and one most of the league is already pulling to some degree. The league sits around 70% middle-column setups, with the leaders near 80%.
Been paying attention to catcher targets for a while now, and the data only makes it that much more interesting to watch for.
Rasmussen Baseball: A database of pitch grips. Just a great idea and I hope the project continues. For the Dodgers, comparing Roki Sasaki‘s forkball and his splitter definitely helps understanding.
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And down the stretch the season goes.
At least it’s Josue De Paula time.
