What 5 Dodgers could be traded during the 2020 season?

Trade Candidate: Mitchell White

The Dodgers are known to have one of the deepest farm systems in all of baseball. They are also known to be one of the stingiest when it comes to trading top talent from their system. That philosophy has proven to pay dividends, as the team has been built by graduating players and plugging them into everyday roles on the team, on a nearly yearly basis.

But to make an omelet, sometimes you have to break a few eggs.

Going back to the Betts trade, the Dodgers showed some recent willingness to send a top prospect (Jeter Downs) to acquire a star player. But even in that case, they still steered away from including any of their top three youngsters. That would likely be the case again during the season as well, as they won’t want to give up team control for a short-term addition. That eliminates the use of Gavin Lux, Dustin May, or Josiah Gray in any trade talks.

However, one of the best things about having a deep system is even going down into your prospect pool may still be enticing to teams that have weaker farms.

Mitchell White may be such an arm that becomes a bit expendable under this scenario.

While the likes of May, Gray, and even Tony Gosselin may be protected, White should have appeal to teams looking for a solid young arm. Now the 11th ranked prospect in the Dodgers system, White can run his fastball up to the mid-’90s, and complements that with two plus breaking pitches in his slider and curve. He started the season strong, throwing 30 innings at Double-A to the tune of a 2.10 ERA, a 3.08 FIP, and an 11.10 K/9 ratio. However, things came crashing back to Earth a bit during his first stint at Triple-A, when PCL hitters ate him up (along with nearly every other pitcher), resulting in a 6.50 ERA, a 5.46 FIP, a 9.60 K/9, and a bloated 1.84 HR/9 over 63.2 innings in Oklahoma City.

White still possesses the ability to miss bats and has the pitch mix to be a starter at the game’s highest level, but he may not get that opportunity in Los Angeles with so many higher ceiling arms ahead of him on the depth chart. That presents an ample opportunity for another club to build a mid-season trade package around him and hope his ceiling is still attainable.