The Dodgers’ offseason starts with uncertainty hanging over the roster, and Kiké Hernández has already made his preference clear: he wants back in Los Angeles.
Free agency opens the morning after the World Series, but the calendar gets complicated fast. The current collective bargaining agreement runs through 9 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Dec. 1, and while players can still agree to new deals before then, an expected lockout would shut the market down and likely keep it frozen well into 2027.
That could have a real effect on Hernández, one of nine Dodgers free agents this winter. The 35-year-old knows the situation is unsettled, but his message after the Dodgers were eliminated by the Milwaukee Brewers was straightforward.
“I love this place. I’ve played for three other teams, but every time I look at my career, I obviously go back to this place.
I’ve been here the longest,” Hernández said after the Dodgers were eliminated by the Milwaukee Brewers. “I mean, I hope I get back.
I feel like I have a lot left.
“This year, I thought it was going to be a good year for me on the personal side. I thought once I was healed from the surgery I was going to finally be healthy and be able to play.
Of course, [expletive] happened. But yeah, I would love to be back.
“I would love to have one more try, try to win another one. But like I said, I don’t really know what’s going to happen.
I hope I’m back. If I’m not, I hope that I get to play for a winning team.”
Hernández has been on short-term Dodgers deals before, and the team brought him back on successive one-year contracts in each of the past two offseasons. He entered 2026 hoping for a cleaner run after left elbow surgery last November, but that plan unraveled when he suffered an oblique injury while taking batting practice before his season debut in late May. He wound up starting only two games before returning to the injured list.
In total, Hernández played in just 41 regular-season games. The Dodgers still leaned on him in October, as they often do, and he delivered one of the lineup’s biggest moments with a home run off Chris Sale in Game 3 of the NL Division Series. But that was his only hit in five starts during the postseason.
Hernández is part of a free-agent group that also includes Kris Bubic, Brusdar Graterol, Eric Lauer, Evan Phillips, Miguel Rojas, Tarik Skubal, Blake Treinen and Alex Vesia.
Rojas is officially retiring to take on a role in the Dodgers front office.
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On the mound, Sam Horn has made his professional debut as a right-hander and has shown some bat-missing ability with five strikeouts in four innings, while Brooks Auger has been in the rotation picture as well, allowing two runs in two innings with three strikeouts in his second start. Keith Law of The Athletic offered scouting observations on both pitchers, and for a farm system that always seems to have arms in motion, these are the kinds of early looks that tend to matter even before the results fully settle in. [Read more 🡒]