Katie Woo’s reporting last week made one thing clear: the Dodgers are willing to move from a position of strength at the deadline, but Josué De Paula is not part of the conversation.
That’s the key name here. According to sources familiar with the club’s thinking, Los Angeles is prepared to deal at least one of its top outfield prospects, but De Paula is firmly off the table. Team executives and rival scouts view him as the best pure hit tool to come through the organization since Corey Seager debuted in 2015, and he’s backing that reputation with a .320 average, a .977 OPS, 24 stolen bases and 26 doubles through 76 games at Double-A Tulsa.
The rest of that outfield group is a different story. Woo reported that Eduardo Quintero, Zyhir Hope, Mike Sirota and James Tibbs III are all available in trade discussions.
And the Dodgers’ aim isn’t limited to helping the big-league club right now. They’re also looking to add to the system itself.
That approach fits the way Andrew Friedman has built this thing. The Dodgers keep signing the biggest free agents every winter, and those moves come with a cost.
This year, they lost their second, third, fifth and sixth-round picks after signing Edwin Díaz and Kyle Tucker. Their bonus pool sits at just under $4 million, the smallest in baseball, and they enter the draft with only one pick in the first 130 selections.
So if the draft can’t fully restock the pipeline, the trade market becomes the other route. Moving from an outfield surplus to bring in high-ceiling talent at catcher, in the middle infield, or on the mound isn’t a side project for the Dodgers.
It’s part of the operating plan. The Athletic report said the team is targeting high-ceiling prospects rather than simply major-league-ready help, which lines up with Friedman’s larger goal: keep the system healthy while the roster stays in title mode.
He’s already done versions of this before. In 2024, Michael Busch and Yency Almonte went to the Cubs for Jackson Ferris and Zyhir Hope.
A year later, Gavin Lux was sent to Cincinnati and the return included Mike Sirota plus a pick that became Charles Davalan. In each case, the Dodgers used a surplus area to patch a different need.
This deadline looks like the same formula, only on a bigger stage.
The latest MLB Top 100 update helps explain why Los Angeles has room to maneuver. The Dodgers now have nine prospects on the list, more than any other organization.
De Paula is No. 4.
Sirota has surged from 38 to 12. Hope is 20th, Quintero is 33rd, Emil Morales is 49th, River Ryan is 72nd and Davalan is 89th.
Two more names also cracked the list: Christian Zazueta at 91 and James Tibbs III at 97.
Tibbs has made the most of his moment. He leads Dodgers prospects in production this season with 21 home runs, 41 extra-base hits and 170 total bases at Triple-A. He’s also at his peak trade value: a former first-round pick, now on the national top-100 list after a breakout, with no clear path to an outfield already occupied by Tucker, Pages and Hernández.
That’s where the Dodgers are right now. They have nine top-100 prospects, six of them outfielders, and that kind of depth creates leverage. The challenge is building enough balance around it - more pitching depth beyond River Ryan and Jackson Ferris in the upper minors, a catching pipeline, and middle-infield options behind Emil Morales.
De Paula is the centerpiece. Everyone else in that group is there for a reason too, but in the Dodgers’ world, they’re also the pieces most likely to be used when the right deal comes along.
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Mookie Betts Just Said What Dodgers Fans Feel About Will Smith
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Mookie Betts, like plenty of Dodgers fans, has come away with a sharper appreciation for what Smith brings when he is healthy. Rushing has had the kind of learning moments that come with catching a major league staff, and the Dodgers are still waiting on the next steps in Smiths recovery before they can circle a more realistic return window, likely sometime in late July or early August. [Read more 🡒]