Dodgers Designate Nick Ahmed For Assignment
The Dodgers designated shortstop Nick Ahmed for assignment and optioned rookie outfielder Andy Pages to Triple-A Oklahoma City this evening. The move opened spots on the major league roster for Max Muncy and Tommy Edman, both of whom have returned from the 60-day injured list. Ahmed’s DFA opened one spot on the 40-man roster, while the Dodgers transferred River Ryan to the 60-day IL to create an additional spot. Ryan underwent Tommy John surgery and is done for the season. Los Angeles also recalled catcher Hunter Feduccia and placed veteran backup Austin Barnes on the 10-day injured list with a toe fracture.
Ahmed signed with the Dodgers a month ago. With Mookie Betts and Miguel Rojas out at the time, Los Angeles added Ahmed directly onto the major league roster. The defensive stalwart started 14 games at shortstop. He continued to provide defensive value but didn’t produce much offensively. While Ahmed hit a go-ahead home run to help beat the Giants (his former team) early in his Dodger tenure, he ultimately hit just .229/.245/.292 in 49 trips to the plate.
Between San Francisco and L.A., Ahmed carries a .232/.271/.300 batting line through 221 plate appearances. While he has never been a huge offensive threat, Ahmed has particularly struggled at the dish over the last two seasons. The two-time Gold Glove winner remains a strong defender, but the lack of firepower at the plate has squeezed him off a trio of rosters within the past two seasons. The Dodgers have welcomed Betts and Rojas back in recent weeks. Even with Betts returning to the outfield, they were comfortable enough with their infield depth to waive deadline pickup Amed Rosario after five games.
Los Angeles now adds two more infield-capable players in Muncy and Edman. The former should return to his everyday work at third base, moving Enrique Hernández back into a utility role. Muncy has been out for three months after suffering an oblique strain that proved more significant than the team initially expected. The power-hitting infielder was out to a .223/.323/.475 start to the season.
Edman is a versatile defender who can play essentially anywhere aside from catcher. He has spent the entire 2024 campaign on the injured list. Edman underwent postseason surgery on his right wrist while he was a member of the Cardinals. St. Louis hoped he’d be ready around Opening Day, yet a much slower recovery process kept him from even going on a rehab assignment until mid-July. The Dodgers nevertheless acquired Edman alongside Michael Kopech in a three-team trade that was one of the biggest moves of deadline season. St. Louis landed Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham from Chicago, who centered their return around Miguel Vargas from Los Angeles.
The Stanford product is now set for his Dodger debut. Manager Dave Roberts told reporters last week that Edman will get the bulk of his work in center field (X link via Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic). A middle infielder by trade, Edman had never started a major league game in center until last season. The Cards gave him 310 2/3 innings there and were rewarded with strong defensive grades — which has been a theme for Edman no matter where he’s played — in that relatively limited sample.
Plugging Edman into the outfield squeezes Pages off the MLB roster for now. The 23-year-old has had a decent if unexceptional rookie season, hitting .246/.305/.388 across 394 trips to the plate. Kevin Kiermaier should move into a fourth outfield capacity while Pages gets everyday playing time for a couple weeks in OKC. Reporter Francys Romero tweets that the Dodgers are likely to recall the Cuban-born outfielder once active rosters expand to 28 players on September 1.
Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times first observed that Pages and Ahmed were being sent out.
Freddie Freeman Playing Through Hairline Fracture In Finger
August 19: Freeman was diagnosed with a hairline fracture, Roberts told reporters on Monday (X link via Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic). The former MVP will attempt to play through the injury and is in the lineup tonight against Seattle.
August 18: Star first baseman Freddie Freeman came out of the Dodgers’ game against the Cardinals yesterday due to what was at the time termed a jammed finger, but despite initial x-rays coming back negative, the situation has worsened overnight. As manager Dave Roberts told Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times and other reporters, Freeman isn’t able to grip a bat due to swelling. Freeman was out of today’s lineup and is still considered day-to-day, but is scheduled to undergo a CT scan on Monday.
The loss of Freeman would be devastating for a Dodgers club that has had its trio of superstar hitters back on the roster together for just six games since Mookie Betts returned from the injured list to rejoin Freeman and Shohei Ohtani at the top of the lineup last week. Even with Betts having recently returned, however, the loss of Freeman’s .292/.391/.488 slash line is sure to be a major blow to the Dodgers’ offense for however long he’s out of action. With the Padres and Diamondbacks rapidly gaining ground in the NL West title hunt, a lengthy absence for Freeman could mean that the Dodgers might have to go down to the wire in this pennant race without one of their best hitters.
Fortunately for the Dodgers, reinforcements for the lineup appear to be just around the corner. DiGiovanna notes that the club is expected to activate infielder Tommy Edman from the injured list tomorrow, and could do the same with Max Muncy. Earlier reports suggested that Muncy wasn’t rejoining the roster until later in the week, but Roberts said (as per The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya) the infielder is flying into L.A. to make sure he’s available Monday if needed.
Edman, 29, won’t help the club’s situation at first base very much, but the versatile switch-hitter should improve the lineup in other areas. He’s previously been expected to play center field for the club on a regular basis, but it’s possible that he could see additional time on the infield given the small-sample success Kevin Kiermaier has had with the club since being acquired from the Blue Jays. If Edman, Miguel Rojas, and Enrique Hernández can cover the left side of the infield while Gavin Lux handles second base, that would allow Muncy to act as the club’s regular first baseman until Freeman is ready to return to the lineup.
The 33-year-old Muncy has been out of action since mid-May due to an oblique issue but was off to a strong start — a .223/.323/.475 slash line across 40 games that’s good for a wRC+ of 117, matching his 2023 performance. Edman, meanwhile, has not played in the majors this year due to a lengthy rehab from offseason wrist surgery, but the Dodgers still acquired him from from the Cardinals in a three-way trade with the White Sox prior to the deadline last month. Edman sports a lengthy track record as a roughly league average bat with excellent defense at multiple positions that will hopefully make him an asset to the Dodgers once healthy.
NL West Notes: Snell, Musgrove, Muncy, Blackmon
Blake Snell made some more baseball history last night when the two-time Cy Young Award winner threw a no-hitter against the Reds. The 18th no-hit game in the history of the New York/San Francisco Giants franchise, Snell’s gem saw him rack up 11 strikeouts against three walks on 114 pitches. It was also the first time Snell had ever thrown eight full innings in any of his 202 career starts, let alone a complete game.
The no-no continues what has now become one of the better pitching stretches of all time. Snell has an 0.55 ERA over his last five starts (33 IP), in what has been an incredible turn-around after an injury-plagued first half of the season. Signing with the Giants only in the midpoint of March, the lack of a proper Spring Training resulted in Snell posting a 9.51 ERA in his first 23 2/3 innings and six starts, as well a pair of trips to the injured list. It was after his latest return from the IL that Snell began his amazing five-start run, capped off with his legendary game yesterday in Cincinnati. While the Giants received plenty of trade interest in Snell prior to last Tuesday’s deadline, keeping an in-form ace will go a long way towards helping San Francisco’s chances at the playoffs.
More from around the NL West…
- Joe Musgrove will begin a minor league rehab assignment on Sunday, the Padres righty told Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune and other reporters. Musgrove said his first rehab outing is slated to be 45-50 pitches over three innings, adding “I feel healthy and I feel like I’m past the elbow issue. Now it’s just a matter of getting my stuff to a point that’s getting big-league hitters out.” Due to bone spurs in his throwing elbow, Musgrove hasn’t pitched since May 26, and his absence figures to stretch into at least mid-August as he gets fully ramped up. The Padres would certainly use some reinforcement in their rotation, as Michael King is day-to-day with a calf bruise, and Sanders doesn’t feel King is likely to make his next scheduled start tomorrow.
- Speaking of long-term injury absences, Max Muncy has been out since mid-May with a lingering oblique strain, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told media (including MLB.com) that Muncy is set to take part in a simulated game on August 8. According to Roberts, a visit with a chiropractor helped Muncy finally have a “breakthrough” in overcoming the ongoing discomfort in his oblique. Muncy’s return can’t come soon enough for the injury-riddled Dodgers, as the third baseman was posting his usual solid numbers — nine homers and a .223/.323/.475 — over his first 167 plate appearances of 2024.
- Charlie Blackmon is day-to-day with a bruise under his left eye after the Rockies veteran was hit in the face by a deflected throw in yesterday’s game. On a grounder to second base, a wayward throw from Xander Bogaerts saw the ball hit Blackmon’s arm and deflect up into his face, and an obviously hurt Blackmon was forced to leave the game. The good news is that Blackmon passed initial concussion tests, even if there was some facial swelling.
Dodgers Transfer Max Muncy To 60-Day Injured List
The Dodgers transferred third baseman Max Muncy to the 60-day injured list this evening. The move opened a spot on the 40-man roster for righty Kyle Hurt, who was reinstated from his own stint on the 60-day IL and optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Muncy has been out since May 17 with an oblique strain. While the team initially expressed hope that he’d back in relatively short order, that’s not how things played out. Muncy is now officially out of action through the All-Star Break. He’ll be eligible for reinstatement when the season’s second half gets underway. Muncy has been taking ground-balls but has yet to resume swinging a bat.
Enrique Hernández has gotten the majority of the third base work in Muncy’s absence. He’s hitting .191/.276/.324 in 76 plate appearances over that stretch. The Dodgers have given a few third base reps to Cavan Biggio, Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor as well. Neither Biggio nor Taylor has hit well this season. Rojas is having a nice year but had to move to shortstop after the Mookie Betts injury.
Muncy was out to his typically solid start before the injury. He’d driven nine home runs with a .223/.323/.475 slash in 167 trips to the plate. The Dodgers’ fill-in options at third base are a clear downgrade, though there’s no indication they’re especially alarmed. L.A. has built a wide enough lead in the NL West to withstand injuries to Betts, Muncy and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, among others. GM Brandon Gomes said earlier in the week that the team wasn’t changing its deadline approach to compensate for losing Yamamoto and Betts. The same is presumably true of Muncy, assuming the Dodgers expect him back sometime in July.
Mookie Betts Suffers Fractured Bone In Left Hand After HBP
Mookie Betts was hit on the left hand by a Dan Altavilla fastball today, causing Betts to drop to the ground in immediate pain and then leave the field. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times) after the game that Betts has a fractured bone in the hand and will be out of action “for some time,” though the former AL MVP won’t require surgery.
More will be known about Betts’ status and a potential recovery timeline in the coming days, but this is undoubtedly a huge blow for the Dodgers. As with any wrist- or hand-related injury, there is plenty of potential for lingering after-effects even after a player is officially cleared for action, given how any changes to grip or hand positioning on a bat can alter a swing. The first order of business for Betts and the Dodgers is just to manage this injury and the recovery as well as possible, though the concern won’t go away until Betts is both back on the field and displaying his usual superstar form at the plate.
Heading into today’s game, Betts was hitting .307/.407/.493 with 10 homers over a league-leading 327 plate appearances, adding 16 doubles and nine stolen bases (in 10 attempts) to those impressive numbers. In addition to that typically excellent offensive production, Betts has also been playing a key defensive role for the Dodgers as their everyday shortstop, a role Betts adopted during Spring Training after Gavin Lux was moved off the position. While defensive metrics have been mixed at best on Betts’ glovework, simply the fact that Betts was willing to change positions and at least passably handled the shortstop role just added to his importance to the L.A. roster.
The Dodgers were still expected to pursue middle infield help at the deadline, both because Lux hasn’t hit much, and to potentially hasten Betts’ move back to second base if a new everyday shortstop was obtained. Today’s developments probably make it even likelier that Los Angeles will look to add a shortstop regardless of how much time Betts misses, though it remains to be seen whether or not the Dodgers now look to make an acquisition sooner rather than later. The team will first want to access Betts’ health, of course, and teams with available infield depth might suddenly raise their asking prices if they perceive the Dodgers are in any way desperate.
In the short term, Roberts said that Miguel Vargas will be called back up from Triple-A to rejoin the infield mix. Miguel Rojas will get the bulk of regular shortstop duty, with Enrique Hernandez also factoring in at both shortstop and third base. Max Muncy is still sidelined with a lingering oblique injury and Roberts said today that Muncy’s recovery has been “even slower than expected,” so it is anyone’s guess as to when the third baseman might be able to help a suddenly-depleted Dodgers infield. Cavan Biggio was recently acquired from the Blue Jays to add to the depth mix, so Betts’ absence will open up more playing time for Biggio at second or third base.
Rojas has long been an excellent defender, and he has been surprisingly productive at the dish with a .278/.328/.444 slash line over 116 PA this season. His 122 wRC+ would be the second-best mark of his 11-year MLB career, though it is obviously a reach to expect Rojas to keep this up for a lengthy amount of time, given that he isn’t making much hard contact at the plate.
Even though the Dodgers lineup is full of big bats, losing Betts also underlines the club’s somewhat top-heavy nature. Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Teoscar Hernandez have all been raking and Muncy was hitting well pre-injury, but Lux, Enrique Hernandez, and Chris Taylor have all been ice cold, while James Outman was struggling so much that Los Angeles optioned the outfielder to Triple-A.
With a 44-29 record, the Dodgers have arguably built up enough of a cushion to withstand losing Betts for a bit of time, as there doesn’t appear to be any danger that Los Angeles would suddenly fall out of the playoff race. However, it can’t be ignored that the Dodgers are now without Betts, Muncy, and more than an entire rotation’s worth of starting pitchers, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Michael Grove joining the long list of injured hurlers earlier today. The Dodgers have been able to both withstand and even thrive despite heavy injuries in past seasons, yet if this missing personnel is enough to drop the Dodgers out of a first-round postseason bye, it will give the team an even more difficult path to a World Series title.
Max Muncy Shut Down Following Setback
Dodgers slugger Max Muncy has been out since mid-May due to an oblique strain but doesn’t sound closer to returning than he was at the time of his original placement on the injured list. Muncy told the Dodgers beat yesterday that he recently experienced a setback in his rehab when he felt pain in his ribcage while swinging a bat (X link via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times). He’s currently shut down from all baseball activity, and there’s no timetable for his return.
Muncy, 33, got out to a typical start in 2024, hitting for a low average that was largely offset by a glut of walks and plenty of extra-base hits. He’s batting .223/.323/.475 with nine homers and eight doubles through 167 trips to the plate this season — about 24% better than league-average production, by measure of wRC+. The slugger’s 12.6% walk rate is four percentage points north of average but nevertheless represents a career-low mark (excepting his 2015 season, when he received only 112 plate appearances in his initial call to the big leagues). Muncy’s 29.9% strikeout rate, meanwhile, is the highest of his career.
In Muncy’s absence, utilityman Enrique Hernandez has seen the bulk of the workload at third base. The offensive struggles that plagued Hernandez early in the season haven’t yet subsided, however. He’s hitting .171/.209/.244 since Muncy landed on the 10-day IL and just .198/.255/.278 on the season overall. Veterans Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor have both seen fleeting time at the hot corner as well. The Dodgers have had plenty of struggles from the bottom-third of their lineup throughout the season even without Muncy’s injury, and dedicating regular time to Hernandez in lieu of Muncy hasn’t helped matters.
Poor production from the lower portion of the lineup is a flaw of this Dodgers club but hasn’t prevented the team from building a comfortable lead in the National League West. Buoyed by massive offensive performances from the star-studded top of the lineup featuring Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Teoscar Hernandez, the Dodgers hold a lead of 6.5 games over the second-place Padres, tying them with the Phillies for the second-largest division lead in all of Major League Baseball. (The Brewers’ seven-game lead in the NL Central is currently the largest division lead in MLB.)
Dodgers Place Max Muncy On Injured List, Option James Outman
The Dodgers made a series of roster moves today, activating outfielder Jason Heyward from the injured list while recalling outfielder Miguel Vargas and right-hander Ricky Vanasco. To open roster spots for that group, they placed third baseman Max Muncy on the 10-day injured list with a right oblique strain and optioned outfielder James Outman and left-hander Nick Ramirez.
Prior to the official announcement, Francys Romero reported on X that Vargas would be called up. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic was among those to relay on X that Outman no longer had a locker with the club.
While oblique strains typically lead to absences of multiple weeks, the Dodgers don’t seem especially concerned. Manager Dave Roberts told the team’s beat (including Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic) that it’s a mild strain. The club is hopeful he’ll only require a minimal stint. Muncy is out to his typical start to the season: drawing plenty of walks and hitting for power to compensate for a low batting average. Through 167 plate appearances, he has a .223/.323/.475 line with nine homers.
Muncy has gotten the start at third base for 36 of L.A.’s 46 games. Enrique Hernández is in the lineup tonight against Cincinnati right-hander Frankie Montas. Roberts told reporters that Hernández and Miguel Rojas will take the third base work while Muncy is out.
Heyward draws back into the lineup after missing six weeks with a back issue. The veteran should be in the lineup in right field against right-handed pitching. That bumps rookie Andy Pages from right field to center field, while Teoscar Hernández will be in one of the corners on an everyday basis. The Dodgers shield Heyward from left-handed pitching. Roberts said one of Vargas or Chris Taylor will be in left field against southpaws, pushing Hernández to right and Heyward to the bench.
The outfield shuffling sends Outman to the minors for the first time since 2022. The 27-year-old finished third in NL Rookie of the Year balloting last season, hitting 23 homers with a .248/.353/.437 slash line. His offensive production has plummeted this season. Outman has been one of the least productive hitters in MLB, turning in a .147/.250/.266 mark. He has fanned in more than 32% of his plate appearances and hasn’t made the same level of power impact he did last season.
Outman will try to get on track at Triple-A Oklahoma City to put himself back on the radar for an MLB call. He’ll need to do so quickly to stay on pace to reach free agency after the 2028 season. Outman entered the season with one year and six days of MLB service. A service year is tallied at 172 days, so he needs to spend at least 166 days on the MLB roster to surpass the two-year threshold in 2024. If he spends more than a couple weeks in Triple-A, he’ll fall short of that mark.
Dodgers Notes: Paxton, Muncy, Cartaya, Frasso
James Paxton threw 96 innings with the Red Sox last season, marking his return to somewhat regular action after injuries limited him to 21 2/3 big league frames in 2020-21 and no innings at all in 2022. Paxton’s comeback year was then basically two seasons in one — the excellent 2.76 ERA he posted over his first 56 innings, followed by an ugly 6.98 ERA in his final 40 innings of work.
As Paxton tells Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times, “I felt like I kind of reached a point where my body was just a little burned out. I didn’t have much left in the tank.” Paxton kept pushing since the Red Sox were still on the fringes of the playoff race, and struggled in particular once he was moved to a regular turn of four days’ rest between starts.
“Early in the season, I had a lot of extra rest, and then we went to a shorter leash. Coming off a surgery and that much time off, I wasn’t conditioned for that,” Paxton said. “If you start off going [every five days] your body gets accustomed to that, whereas if you go six all the time, that’s what your body gets accustomed to. We’re creatures of habit.”
Despite the rough finish to his season, Paxton still landed $7MM from the Dodgers on a one-year free agent contract, even if that $7MM total dropped from an initial $11MM guarantee due to some concerns the team had about his overall health. The 35-year-old lefty is hopeful that getting some innings under his belt last season will better help him manage the length of the 2024 campaign, plus L.A. will deploy “somewhat of a six-man rotation,” according to assistant pitching coach Connor McGuinness. The idea is to keep all of the Dodgers’ hurlers fresh and healthy, plus some other reinforcements in Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May could join the pitching mix after the middle of the season.
Whereas Paxton’s 2023 season was basically divided in two, Max Muncy‘s year was a bit more of a roller-coaster before he finished a pretty typical year of production. The infielder hit .212/.333/.475 over 579 plate appearances while matching his career high of 36 home runs, translating to a 118 wRC+. Los Angeles was impressed enough to sign Muncy to a new contract extension, guaranteeing him $24MM through 2025 while also tacking a $10MM club option on his services for 2026.
Muncy’s recipe of homers, walks, low averages, and high strikeouts is pretty set, but as he enters his age-33 season, Muncy feels he has more to offer as a defensive player. He told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that his offseason regiment included cutting 15 pounds and focusing more on flexibility training.
“It was just making sure my feet move a little bit more, and getting the knees healthy. Last year, I had a little trouble with just not staying down on the ball,” Muncy said. “I was coming up out of my fielding stance and everything. And when you’re doing that, it’s hard to read the hops and I kept putting myself in bad positions last year with bad hops….So the focus was just making sure that my feet stay moving. Just allowing myself to read the ball and make moves on it.”
There’s basically nowhere to go but up for Muncy defensively, as the public defensive metrics (-7 Outs Above Average, -3 Defensive Runs Saved, -14.8 UZR/150) were unanimously unimpressed with his third base glovework in 2023. The move to more or less a full-time third base role has come as the Dodgers have brought superstar talent into Muncy’s other positions — Shohei Ohtani is now locked in at DH, Freddie Freeman at first base, and Mookie Betts is now moving into everyday second base duty.
“I’ve been very open about how I want to stay here for the rest of my career….So if I want to play here, I need to make sure I’m in the field, and the best way to do that is just put myself in a good spot,” Muncy said.
In other Dodgers news, GM Brandon Gomes told Plunkett and other reporters that catching prospect Diego Cartaya has been dealing with a back problem but the “full expectation” is that Cartaya will be set for the start of the Double-A season. Back problems have bothered Cartaya in the past, and the last thing the catcher needs is an injury setback as he looks to bounce back from a difficult season. A top-20 prospect in the sport heading into the 2023 campaign, Cartaya hit only .189/.278/.379 over 403 PA at Double-A last season, dropping his stock as a potential catcher of the future.
Nick Frasso is another top-100 prospect looking at a lost year, as he was already expected to miss the 2024 season after undergoing shoulder surgery back in November. Gomes added that Frasso also had a “clean-up” surgery on his right hip labrum, though it doesn’t appear as though this second procedure will impact the right-hander’s timeline. If all goes well, Gomes thinks Frasso will be able to pitch in the Arizona Fall League.
Dodgers Sign Max Muncy To Two-Year Extension
The Dodgers announced they’ve signed infielder Max Muncy to a two-year, $24MM extension. The deal also includes a $10MM club option for 2026. The contract overwrites a $14MM option that L.A. had on Muncy’s services for next season.
A client of Hub Sports Management, Muncy will reportedly receive a $5MM signing bonus. He’ll make a $7MM salary next season and $12MM in 2025, while the deal includes additional bonuses based on his plate appearance totals. The contract has a $12MM average annual value.
Muncy, 33, has spent the past six seasons in Los Angeles. Originally an unceremonious addition via minor league contract, he quickly developed into one of the Dodgers’ most important hitters. The lefty-swinging infielder has reached the 35-homer mark in four of the five full schedules. He popped 36 longballs this past season, tying with Jorge Soler for 12th in the majors in that regard.
That power production comes with one of the sport’s more extreme offensive approaches. Muncy is a prototypical three true outcomes hitter. He pairs the home runs with an extremely patient plate approach. The deep counts translate to plenty of walks, as he has drawn a free pass in 15% of his career plate appearances. Yet he’s also prone to strikeouts and runs very low averages on balls in play thanks to a fly-ball heavy swing.
As a result, Muncy has one of the lower batting averages among everyday players. He hit .212/.333/.475 through 579 trips to the plate this past season. That’s on the heels of a .196/.329/.384 showing. Over the last two years, the two-time All-Star sports a .204/.331/.430 line in a little more than 1100 trips to the plate.
That isn’t quite as impressive as Muncy’s production over his first few seasons in Southern California. The overall offensive production is still clearly above-average, however. Muncy’s 118 wRC+ this year indicates he was 18 percentage points better than an average batter. The front office clearly values his contributions, as they’ve now signed him to three separate extensions.
Muncy has a decent amount of experience at first and second base. He spent the entire ’23 campaign at third base, logging a personal-high 1052 innings there. Metrics like Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average estimated he was between three and five runs below par at the hot corner. That’s hardly disastrous but aligns with his reputation as a bat-first player.
As he gets into his mid-30s, that profile seems likely to skew increasingly towards offense. Whether Muncy sees another 120+ starts at third base may well be determined by the Dodgers’ subsequent offseason moves. Freddie Freeman is locked in at first base. The club should welcome Gavin Lux back from the ACL tear that cost him all of 2023, likely securing second base. Miguel Vargas, Michael Busch and Chris Taylor are among the possibilities for third base reps, although Muncy is clearly above that group on the depth chart.
The designated hitter role will be one of the stories of the offseason. L.A. will see J.D. Martinez hit free agency in the coming days, although they could make him a qualifying offer. They’re sure to make a run at Shohei Ohtani, a potential addition that would push Muncy back to third base.
Even with this deal in place, the Dodgers have plenty of breathing room financially. Roster Resource projected the 2024 payroll around $127MM before this extension. That’ll sit a little under $140MM now, well below this year’s $223MM Opening Day estimate. The $12MM AAV pushes their luxury tax projection to roughly $155MM. That’s more than $80MM south of next year’s $237MM base threshold.
Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Dodgers and Muncy were seriously discussing a two-year extension. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first suggested the deal was agreed upon. Murray had the specific salary breakdown.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Daniel Hudson Undecided About Future
2023 may have been the most frustrating of Daniel Hudson‘s 14 MLB seasons, as injuries limited the Dodgers right-hander to just three appearances. As a result, Hudson is still “undecided” about his playing future, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic writes, though at the time the reliever was still dealing with the emotions after the Dodgers were just eliminated from the postseason.
Los Angeles signed Hudson to a one-year, $7MM deal going into 2022 and that relationship began beautifully, with Hudson delivering a 2.22 ERA, 30.9% strikeout rate, 5.2% walk rate and 53.4% ground ball rate over his first 25 appearances and 24 1/3 innings in Dodger blue. However, Hudson’s season was abruptly ended by a torn left ACL in June 2022, but L.A. had enough faith in his ability to come back that the club signed him to an extension that September. The Dodgers made the early decision to exercise their $6.5MM club option on Hudson for 2023, and another $6.5MM club option was added for the 2024 season.
Battling through some knee soreness during the recovery process, Hudson finally returned to action this past June, but pitched in only three games before suffering a sprained MCL in his right knee. The reliever kept rehabbing in an attempt to make it back for at least part of Los Angeles’ playoff run, but that would’ve been a touch-and-go situation even if the Dodgers had advanced to the NLCS or beyond.
While it doesn’t look like L.A. will exercise that club option, the Dodgers could look to bring Hudson back on a smaller sum, perhaps a low-guarantee deal with incentives based around how many appearances Hudson is able to pitch. Of course, that depends on whether or not Hudson (who turns 37 in March) will decide to keep pitching at all, or opt to instead hang up the cleats after his lengthy and successful career. This isn’t the first time Hudson has floated retirement, as he said back in August that he had “been in pretty consistent pain for about 15 months” since the ACL tear.
Ardaya’s piece in general looks ahead to the many decisions the Dodgers will have to make before Opening Day 2024, including a rundown of the club’s other contract options besides Hudson. Of note, Max Muncy‘s $10MM club option for next season has now increased to $14MM, since the infielder maxed out his playing time-related bonuses by making 579 plate appearances in 2023.
Muncy battled elbow problems for much of the 2022 season, so the Dodgers signed him to a one-year contract extension in a similar vein to Hudson’s deal. The team essentially committed early to a pre-existing club option on Muncy for 2023, giving him a slight raise to a $10.5MM salary this season and tacking on the 2024 club option with the $10MM base salary. Up to $4MM (in increments of $250K, $500K, and $1MM) more was available based on various playing time thresholds, which Muncy pretty easily cleared. After hitting 36 homers with an .808 OPS and 118 wRC+ this season, there isn’t any doubt Los Angeles will exercise Muncy’s option and bring him back in 2024.