The Dodgers sent a strong All-Star contingent to Philadelphia, but the bigger story might have been the familiar names wearing different colors.
Los Angeles had six official representatives in Tuesday’s game. Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy and Andy Pages were in the National League starting lineup, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was unavailable to pitch, and Justin Wrobleski handled later innings. On the other side, the American League roster featured several former Dodgers - players the club traded away or let leave before their All-Star peaks fully arrived.
That group has long fed the idea that the Dodgers overvalue their own prospects and homegrown talent, then watch those players blossom elsewhere. But the performances and seasons from Yordan Alvarez, Miguel Vargas and Cody Bellinger tell a different story: Los Angeles has a real eye for identifying talent, even if the payoff sometimes comes after those players are gone.
Yordan Alvarez remains the clearest example. Andrew Friedman came as close as he could to admitting the Dodgers missed on him when he looked back on the August 2016 trade with Houston.
That deal sent Alvarez to the Astros before he had even played a professional game, with reliever Josh Fields heading to Los Angeles. Friedman said in 2019, "We obviously wish we would have said yes to other names they asked for before him."
Alvarez wasted no time proving the Astros right. He won Rookie of the Year in 2019 and has only gotten better since.
This season, he leads the American League in hits with 111, homers with 31 and RBI with 70, while also sitting atop all of baseball with a 1.059 OPS. With Aaron Judge out of the mix, he could push Bobby Witt Jr. in the AL MVP race.
Miguel Vargas is another former Dodger who has found his footing after leaving Los Angeles. His move to the Chicago White Sox in the middle of their historically rough 2024 season gave him the kind of opportunity he wasn’t going to get with the Dodgers.
It took some time, but he’s turned into a productive piece for Chicago and was viewed as the White Sox’s most valuable player this season, even though Junior Caminero got the starting nod at third base for the AL. The Dodgers, meanwhile, came out of that three-way deal with Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman.
Then there’s Cody Bellinger, whose path away from Los Angeles has only sharpened the contrast. After his steep drop-off in 2021 and 2022, he has worked his way back to All-Star form, earning his first Midsummer Classic appearance since his MVP season in 2019. He’s doing it with the Yankees, which won’t sit perfectly with Dodgers fans, but his comeback has been hard to ignore.
At this point, Bellinger may deserve as much credit for rebuilding himself as the Dodgers do for developing him in the first place. Even so, his name is still one plenty of Dodgers fans will use as proof that the organization helped launch another star.
In Other News...
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Andrew Friedman has made it clear the Dodgers are not interested in rushing the process, even with the need for another starter looming in the background. Ryan is expected to work his way back into the mix later this season, and if everything goes smoothly from here, the club may finally get a better sense of how soon he can become part of the answer rather than just another promising arm on the way up. [Read more 🡒]
Dodgers Fans Have A Bigger Roki Sasaki Concern Than They Realized
Roki Sasakis first season in Los Angeles has been bumpy enough that the Dodgers are spending the All-Star break looking for answers, not just results. He finished his final start before the break with six innings of work, allowing four hits and three earned runs, and the broader line has been hard to ignore: a 3-5 record and a 5.33 ERA through 16 starts.
The encouraging part for the Dodgers is that Sasaki is still in the rotation, which gives the club time to keep working through what has gone wrong. The less comforting part is how quickly the conversation has shifted from simple command issues to a deeper mechanical concern, and the next few weeks should tell whether the break gives him a reset or only a brief pause in a season that has already asked a lot of him. [Read more 🡒]