Dodgers: 3 players who survived trade deadline but won’t be on 2022 roster

1. Gavin Lux

Has Gavin Lux shown enough this season that you’re very confident he can adequately replace Seager’s production at 1/25th of the cost?

Not … really. In fact, heading into the trade deadline, we were far more confident Lux would end up in Washington than we were that he would man the left side of the infield for the next several years at Chavez Ravine.

A few years back, Lux likely would’ve been the centerpiece of the Scherzer/Turner deal, but in 2021, he’s not roughly equivalent to any of the pieces surrendered. Add in the redundancy of Ruiz alongside Will Smith and Diego Cartaya, and you had a tailor-made trade that still left Lux, formerly among MLB’s tippy-top prospects, on the outside looking in on his own roster.

Given an everyday role this season and asked to shine, we’ve seen the power and preening on occasion from the middle infielder, who’s still just 23 years old. Those moments of swaggering confidence have been few and far between, though, replaced mainly with below-average defense and a bat that’s been well under the league average (an 80 OPS+ is not going to cut it).

There’s a reason rumors were swirling about Lux’s availability at the deadline, and there’s also a reason no trade came to fruition; he’s not quite the trade target he used to be, and he certainly hasn’t shown enough to be handed the keys to Seager’s role in 2022.

Dodgers: 3 biggest mistakes LAD made this offseason

The Los Angeles Dodgers put together a fairly special team this offseason, but let some old friends go and replaced them in questionable fashion.