Dodgers: Infield grades for the month of April
After one month of Dodgers’ baseball, we have a general idea of what the team’s potential is. Each player plays a prominent role on the team, and we’ve broken down the other positions.
After an underwhelming start for the outfield and surprising start for the bullpen, let’s take a look at the job the infield has done after the first month of April. The Dodgers missed one starter for the majority of the month, but he’s still worthy of a grade. Let’s dive in to see how the infield has faired after the first month of the season.
Yasmani has had an up and down season to start the year. He hasn’t exactly lived up to the breakout expectations that we thought he might have coming into the season, but he hasn’t been awful at the same time.
Grandal is hitting a mere .215 with 3 home runs and 8 RBI. The average is never expected out of Grandal, so the fact that his average is in the low .200’s isn’t surprising. What I can say that has been disappointing has been his power outage. With only a .380 slugging percentage, Grandal’s power numbers are down dramatically, and that’s a little concerning.
Another disappointing part of Grandal’s game is that he still has yet to improve as against lefties. Last season Grandal hit .224 and only had 4 home runs through the entire season. This season, it’s still bad. He’s hitting .120 with only one home run in 29 at-bats.
What helped Grandal’s grade is his durability as a catcher, as he’s started 25 out of the 29 games for the Dodgers this season. In those 25 starts, Grandal has also been a beast as the second half of the battery. Grandal has thrown out seven out of the eight baserunners to start the season and has a team-leading defensive rating of 4.7. Outside of doing a stellar job managing the pitching staff, Grandal has locked down runners when trying to gain an extra base against our pitchers.
At times he’s allowed an occasional pass ball/wild pitch get away due to his attempt to pitch frame every pitch, he’s still one of the best defensive catchers in the league. Despite the slow start to the season offensively, Grandal brings consistent production on the defensive side of the plate to perhaps one of the most important positions on the field.
The most disappointing aspect of this season may be the regression of Adrian Gonzalez. As disappointing as it is to watch the 34-year-old struggle, it was expected that he would fall off a bit. But, did anyone expect that his struggles would be this bad?
It has been very rough watching Adrian at the plate this season, but he does still own a .267 batting average and a .340 on-base percentage which would put him at about league-average.
Where he has been struggling has been in the power category. He has yet to hit a home run this season and currently owns a .320 slugging percentage. He also owns a -0.3 WAR, which is less than ideal and definitely worrisome.
Over at first base, Adrian hasn’t looked like himself either. Through the first month of the season, Adrian has a total of minus two defensive runs saved which, also, is less than ideal. This may be attributed to Adrian dealing with a forearm injury since the WBC. It may also be that he is struggling with a herniated disk according to manager Dave Roberts.
Whatever the reason is, the best course of action right now looks to be to put him on the disabled list. If he does not deal with the injury, this season’s narrative with him will be of him holding off Cody Bellinger from taking his spot at first and holding the team back while doing so.
Man oh man, is it going to be fun watching Corey Seager playing in Dodger Blue for years to come. So far this year, he has silenced any thought of a sophomore slump and further supplanted himself as one of the top players in the game today. Through April, Seager has been better than advertised and an important part of the dynamic duo on the left side of the infield.
In April, Seager owned a .319/.411/.549 slash line which is, well, pretty elite. He also tied for the team lead in home runs with five, which, is also pretty good.
To put his start to the season in a few words, he is very good. He has definitely put himself in the superstar conversation and has even made an argument to be the future face of the franchise as my colleague Hector Ponce talked about.
Having a young stud that plays the most important position in the infield is always great, but having one that puts himself in the MVP conversation year in and year out is terrific. We definitely have been spoiled by the 23-year-old’s spectacular play, and it will be fun to see what he can bring to the team for the rest of the season. As amazing as Corey has been this season, the man to his right on the field was and has been even more spectacular.
After the Dodgers gave Justin Turner a four-year $64 million deal this offseason, many expected him to continue the production he has brought to the team at the hot corner. Turner has been red hot to start this season and has more than exceeded expectations that came with his contract.
If you’ve watched any Dodger baseball this season, at some point your eyes had to have been drawn to the “bearded one”. During the first month of the season, Turner was on fire and held a .404 batting average and sprayed the ball all over the field. He was and continues to be one of, if not the hardest out, in the lineup for Los Angeles and currently owns a 1.5 WAR on the young season.
We cannot ignore his defense either. Over at the hot corner, Turner has been making a name for himself as one of the top third basemen in the game. He is not only putting up silver slugger numbers at the plate but has produced more than a few Gold Glove caliber plays and continues to be a defensive rock.
If Turner can continue his hot start to the year, he will have his name in the MVP discussion throughout the season. It looks as if the Dodgers have found the heart and soul of their offense for at least the next four years in Justin Turner.
When the Dodgers traded their talented young prospect Jose De Leon to Tampa Bay this winter, they received a versatile and cheap option at second base in Logan Forsythe. Forsythe was a solution to the team’s lefty struggles, and it looked to be paying off in the first few games of the season. Sadly, 14 days into Forsythe’s Dodgers career, he fractured his toe and is currently still sitting on the disabled list.
Before Forsythe broke his toe, he was playing quite well for the team. He had a .295/.407/.341 slash line (.429/.536/.524 against lefties) before he found himself on the DL, which shows what kind of player he is.
He isn’t a power hitter despite what his 20 homers last year show. He will, however, fight to get on-base and give you those intangibles that you can’t find in every player. His high on-base percentage will attest to that, and when he makes it back to LA, he will fill a big hole in the Dodgers’ lineup.
Forsythe has had a few rehab games over in Rancho Cucamonga but did recently suffer a setback, which is worrisome. He is, however, starting to get healthy again and like I said, should be back in Los Angeles in no time to fill the gap over at second base. For the time being though, his replacements have more than pulled their weight for the team.
With the injury to Logan Forsythe, the Dodgers were left scrambling trying to fill the hole that he left. Since his injury, Chris Taylor, Chase Utley, and Kike Hernandez have all seen playing time, not only at second but all over the infield. Austin Barnes has also been a key bench piece, as he has spelled a few games for Yasmani Grandal over the first month of the season.
Chase Utley started off the season terribly and was at one point batting .036. Since then, Chase has not played much better, and questions are starting to arise about his roster spot on the team.
Kike Hernandez, on the other hand, has been an important and versatile piece for the team because of his ability to play all over the field. He’s played four different positions for Los Angeles so far this season, in part due to the injuries they have faced.
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After a terrible 2016 campaign, Kike was hitting better and homered twice (both off lefties) during the first month of the season, but he still struggled to get on-base as his .288 on-base percentage for the month of April shows.
Chris Taylor has done more than enough to earn himself a spot on the team, and like Kike is a Swiss Army Knife at the Dodgers’ disposal. In 13 games for the team, Chris has two home runs and owns a .444 on-base percentage and a .937 OPS in April. Coming into the year, I questioned whether Chris could be a major piece to this club. I have been happily proven wrong thus far, as Taylor has been playing like the team’s best bench piece so far.
Austin Barnes is another one of those versatile guys that this front office covets so very much. He has played seven games behind the plate, and one game each at second and third. At the plate, Barnes did not hit well as shown by his .231 batting average in April.
He has, however, shown great discipline at the plate. He’s drawn five walks in 29 at-bats to start the 2017 campaign. He has also been able to give Grandal some much-needed days off, so I would say he has proven his value to the club so far.
2017 has already been a roller-coaster for the Dodgers. They’ve seen plenty of struggles and injuries during the single month of April, but they have also seen their fair share of success stories.
With this Dodgers’ infield, you get a little taste of each category. The infield has, by all means, been good for the team and will definitely help them make a push for the playoffs later on in the year.