Dodgers: Infielders August Grade Report

Logan Forsythe

Forsythe has had a rough first year with the Dodgers. From being on the DL to striking out in crucial moments; he’s found his name on the wrong side of tweets from Dodger fans all season long, let alone this month.

Whatever the reason may be, Forsythe hasn’t gotten it going like the Dodgers had hoped he would. On the season he’s hitting .233 with 4 home runs but a 27% strikeout percentage. Those numbers are a mere shade of the numbers he put in his last two seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays, and August was no different.

Forsythe had a slash line of .212/.391/.318 in 87 plate appearances. This month he did improve a bit on his strike out to walk ratio, drawing 20 walks to 25 strikeouts, but still struggled to find his power. Forsythe had 14 hits in the month, and only 5 of them were for extra bases. Once the consensus leadoff hitter, Forsythe has dropped to 8th in the lineup, so his lack of power numbers don’t affect the team as much as his inconsistency getting on base.

This month was both good and bad for Forsythe. The positive is that he looks healthy now for the first time all season and that he’s increasing his walk percentage. The bad is that the hits still aren’t coming along for him. This month his BABIP dropped nearly 50 points, which you would hope is a sign of positive regression coming soon. But that wasn’t the case in July when his BABIP was at .362 yet still only hit .254. That tells me that even when Forsythe is getting lucky, he’s still not the hitter we had hoped he’d be coming into the season. Forsythe’s improved walk rate, but the inability to get hits to turn over the lineup gets him a D for August.