Dodgers: 3 trade targets LA needs to beat Giants to

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ roster was constructed to withstand injuries and other absences, but they can kiss their World Series hopes goodbye if they don’t make at least two major trades before the upcoming July 31 deadline.

With just three true starters on the active roster and a depleted bullpen, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman already confirmed the club will be extra aggressive on those two fronts over the next several days.

While the Dodgers probably have a good idea of which players they plan on pursuing — if negotiations haven’t started already, that is — they’ll unfortunately have to fend of the unflappable Giants, who took the opening game of their series with LAD on Monday.

Given that Los Angeles and San Francisco have similar needs, though the Giants will be on the prowl for more position players, the Dodgers must beat their longtime rivals, who now have a two-game lead in the NL West, to the punch with these three targets.

The Dodgers need to beat the Giants to these trade targets.

3. Richard Rodriguez

The Pirates have a couple of promising pieces to build around, but they will undoubtedly be looking to sell players that don’t fit into their rebuild plans.

At 31 years old and clearly ready to play a role on a contending team, Richard Rodriguez is currently wasting away in Pittsburgh. The overpowering right-hander owns a 2.65 ERA and 2.61 FIP on a team that’s second to last in the NL standings, to go with 31 strikeouts, a 0.804 WHIP, and just four walks across 37.1 innings of work.

If someone like Craig Kimbrel proves to be too expensive for the Dodgers, Rodriguez would be quite the consolation prize. While the Pirates star’s current numbers are among the best for relievers this season, it’s worth noting his ERA stood at 1.78 before the month of July.

That wasn’t too long after MLB banned foreign substances, so the Dodgers should ask themselves whether the Pirates star was using it, or if his recent run of form is simply a case of him regressing to the mean after an unforgettable start to the campaign.

Either way, we’ve seen enough from Rodriguez to want the club to pursue him in aggressive fashion at the deadline. If they don’t there’s an excellent chance he lands with one of the San Francisco or San Diego, and LA would live to regret it if that happened.