Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Not a ton of deep dives or anything at this point of the year, but there is a lot of Discourse™ going on about a couple things that’s worth considering, IMO.
Enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the Dodgers, especially the footage of Miguel Rojas and Enrique Hernandez saying their goodbyes. Might be the final time for both, but only one is confirmed for now.
Cool. https://t.co/UTjhjiUiyu pic.twitter.com/XY2lG1JVq9
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) October 31, 2026
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A great article on the hitting approach of the Brewers, in which I found a surprising amount of similarities to the one taken by the Dodgers.
A lot of the differences are … well, mostly personnel related.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled Robert Van Scoyoc scapegoating.
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In former player updates, it didn’t take long for (Dodger legend) Miguel Rojas to get back to work by fulfilling my wish of helping Charles Davalan in his move to second base (more on that later).
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MLB Pipeline: A profile on Sam Horn from the Arizona Fall League, as well as a scouting report on where his stuff currently lies and how it’s gotten there.
From an arsenal perspective, the 6-foot-4 righty has retained the stuff that made him intriguing to the Dodgers in the first place. Over his six AFL appearances, his fastball has primarily sat 94-96 mph and occasionally touched 97, as it did Monday, with close to 7 feet of extension that helps it play up. An 82-85 mph sweeper has carried over from college with big horizontal break to the glove side — six of the 13 whiffs Horn has generated this fall have come from the sweeper alone.
Specifically, the addition of a changeup is a new wrinkle.
But it’s a grip alteration on his 88-91 mph changeup, which Horn used for a swing-and-miss on his first strikeout Monday, that could give him a big-time weapon against lefties with negative induced vertical break and about a foot of armside run.
“I’ve always been like a circle changeup guy in the little bit of time in college I had, and it was it was a good pitch,” Horn said. “But then as I got here, [Andrew] Amato, our rehab pitching coach, was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you try the kick [change]?’ I tried it, and at first, I hated it. ‘This is not gonna work. There’s no way I’m ever doing this.’ And then he’s like, ‘Just trust it.’ So I trusted it, and sure enough, it’s been really good, so I love it. Just want to keep doing it.”
Adding a cutter is also mentioned, but the most important thing is experience and getting healthy.
Baseball America: Due to the AFL being the first look people get at Horn as a pro and after his injury, there’s thankfully a lot of coverage.
Horn’s secondaries stood out more than his fastball, with both flashing plus potential. He threw seven breaking balls, showing two distinct shapes: a true sweeper with 14-16 inches of horizontal break and a two-plane breaking ball with 10-12 inches of horizontal break and more depth. His sweeper was the better of the two, as he showed the ability to backfoot it to lefties, generating a pair of whiffs.
Specifically useful was video evidence of the sweeper.
FanGraphs: Another positive report on Charles Davalan’s position change? Another positive report on Charles Davalan’s position change.
Davalan is revisiting second base, where he played as a freshman at Florida Gulf Coast, and it’s going well. A long in-person look has also made me confident that he has meaningful juice despite being such a little guy. He’s going to be an everyday player, even if that means playing a mix of second base and left field the way Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernández would in concert with Max Muncy.
There’s also mention of Eduardo Quintero and Horn.
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Baseball America: They revealed their prospect leaderboard in their Hit+ metric by age, and Chase Harlan (113 Hit+) was fifth among 19-year-olds, Josue De Paula (118) was first among 21-year-olds, and Davalan (118) was first among 22-year-olds. Pretty good.
Baseball America: Meanwhile, on their prospect leaderboard for their Stuff+ metric, Christian Zazueta (115 Stuff+) was seventh overall among pitchers with 1500 pitches thrown.
From a statistical standpoint, Zazueta had as good a season as any top pitching prospect not named Kade Anderson in 2026.
Zazueta posted a 115 Stuff+ score, 16.4% swinging-strike rate, 4.9% walk rate and 30.39% K-BB rate this season. He was the only pitcher in the minors to meet all four of those marks, thanks in large part to the quality of his pitch mix and his ability to command his plus stuff.
The tops in Stuff+ among pitchers with 800 pitches thrown? 2023 23rd-round pick Alex Makarewich (122), who threw 38.2 innings at A+ and had a 4.89 ERA as a 24-year-old. He did strikeout an impressive 60 over that time, but also walked a whopping 52.
Baseball America: Specifically talking about the best fastballs by Stuff+, the four-seam of Davis Chastain (117 Stuff+) ranked fifth and got highlighted.
The Dodgers drafted Davis Chastain out of Georgia in the 14th round in 2025. Over 41 appearances for High-A Great Lakes, he pitched to a 2.52 ERA while striking out 76 batters over 53.2 innings. Chastain sits 94 mph with heavy ride and flatter plane. His fastball didn’t miss as many bats as you’d expect, though, resulting in a 10.4% swinging-strike rate.
Also making the four-seam list in the same spot was Aidan Foeller (117), who made it to AA at 24 last year. For two-seamers, Marlon Nieves (114) ranked 12th, and he’s currently in the AFL.
Baseball America: For breaking balls by Stuff+, the cutter of Patrick Copen (114) ranked fourth, but it was the curves where the system seemed to excel. Jacob Kmatz (117) was highlighted after his curve ranked 13th.
The Dodgers acquired Jacob Kmatz from the Rays at the trade deadline, and he’s since moved into LA’s Top 30. Kmatz has great stuff, including an upper-90s fastball and a curveball that drops off the table. The curve sits in the 79-80 mph range and had a whopping -22 inches of induced vertical break on average. The pitch generated a swinging-strike rate of 18.1% and a 33.9% chase rate.
The curve of Copen (121) was actually third — if he can throw strikes, he’s a major leaguer — while Carson Hobbs (115) clocked in at 16th, using it to be an effective reliever in AA this year at 24.
Baseball America: Then there’s changeups by Stuff+, where both Zazueta (115/sixth) and Hyun-Seok Jang (114/seventh) were featured.
The Dodgers’ Christian Zazueta is one of the best righthanded pitching prospects in the minors, and he has a powerful arsenal of above-average-or-better pitches. His changeup is his go-to secondary, seeing higher usage than either of his breaking balls. The pitch sits 85-87 mph with around five inches of IVB and 18-19 inches of armside run on average. Zazueta kills lift on his changeup while generating heavy armside run. The difference in plane off his fastball led to strong results in 2026, including a 22.3% swinging-strike rate, 36.3% chase rate and .228 xwOBA against.
Some of the best changeup numbers belong to Hyun-Seok Jang of the Dodgers. The pitch generated a 30.1% swinging-strike rate this season with a 42.8% chase rate and 50% groundball rate. It’s a mid-80s offering with heavy armside run and good separation off his heater.
Baseball America: They also did farm system rankings that factor in the whole player pool for teams, and the Dodgers finished with a Stuff+ of 114 (fourth) and a Hit+ of 106 (third). The one caveat I had to note is that their pitchers did also finish dead last in throwing strikes.
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Baseball America: Recent experimentation in the minor leagues has led to the implementation of stuff like the three-batter rule for pitchers, the three-disengagement rule for pickoffs, the pitch clock, the ABS challenge system, bigger bases, and the ban of infield shifts. Next up is the ACS challenge system for check swings, which seems inevitable at this point, but after that could be banning outfield shifts.
They are experimenting with just that in the AFL, and so far in a tiny sample it has led to runs being up 34%, hits being up 32%, doubles being up 81%, and triples being up 236%. It definitely accomplishes the goal of more hits and more action, but it seems like a bridge too far for many so far.
Offense is up substantially at Salt River Fields compared to the rest of the league, especially when it comes to doubles and triples. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but the feedback on the rules from scouts who have watched games with the positional testing was almost universally negative.
That said, the reaction was negative to most of the aforementioned changes already implemented, and most of them have worked out extremely well so far. There definitely seems to be a potential middle ground in there for this change too, and perhaps it’ll eventually become like the lack of infield shifts where you basically don’t notice it anymore.
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Anyway, here’s every homer Josue De Paula hit in the minors last season.
