The Dodgers know exactly where the priority sits with Josue De Paula, even if his long-term lineup fit is still a little fuzzy.
For all the buzz around his bat, the 21-year-old’s path to a steady big league role still runs through the outfield. De Paula got a late-season look when injuries piled up around Shohei Ohtani and he filled the designated hitter spot in September. Once Ohtani came back, De Paula went back to the bench, and his defense was a big part of why.
Manager Dave Roberts put it plainly in September: “I think that he’s a young player," manager Dave Roberts said in September. "I mean, he’s 21 years old. His bat has certainly got him here, but it’s our job to make him value defense and get him to be a better defender.”
De Paula has played all three outfield positions as a minor leaguer, but the Dodgers’ current roster picture makes his 2027 future tricky to map out. If Ohtani is healthy and Teoscar Hernandez, Andy Pages and Kyle Tucker are in place, the outfield would look crowded.
Still, the Dodgers may not want to park a rookie on the major league bench next season if there’s regular playing time waiting in the minors. At the same time, De Paula’s late-season production gives them a real reason to keep him in the conversation. He hit .323/.500/.681 in 11 big league games to close the regular season, and if he brings anything close to that to spring training, the Dodgers would have every reason to find him a place on the 26-man roster.
The defensive work has already started. During the regular season, the Dodgers spent time helping De Paula in the outfield, though that could be harder to continue once the offseason hits. A lockout is expected on Dec. 1, when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires, and the last work stoppage in 2021-22 kept team personnel - managers, coaches, executives and others - from contacting 40-man roster players.
Even so, the club’s offseason message for De Paula is straightforward. “We've talked through it,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said Wednesday at the end-of-season press conference. "His mindset, and our coaching staff and all of us is, to make him as good a defensive outfielder as possible."
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman also pointed to the way the Dodgers’ clubhouse took to De Paula in September and October, along with the progress he made from 2025 to 2026.
As the Dodgers keep building toward a future with more prospects in the mix, De Paula may be one of the most important names in that group.
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For Dodgers supporters, it is the kind of postseason that can prompt a split reaction. There is obvious pride in seeing former players in the Fall Classic and the possibility that some of them could end up with championship rings, but there is also the strange reality of tracking ex-Dodgers on clubs that stand between Los Angeles and another title run. Mays season with Milwaukee has been uneven across the regular season and into October, adding another layer to a World Series that already feels unusually tied to the Dodgers recent past. [Read more 🡒]