Dodgers insider names untouchable top prospect fans may least expect in trade talks

Katie Woo of The Athletic dropped a significant piece of insider reporting last week, and it tells you everything about how the Dodgers actually operate.

According to sources familiar with the club's thinking, Los Angeles is prepared to part with at least one of their top outfield prospects at the deadline — with one name firmly off the table. That name is Josué De Paula.

Team executives and rival scouts describe him as the player with the best pure hit tool to come up in the organization since Corey Seager debuted in 2015. He's hitting .320 with a .977 OPS through 76 games at Double-A Tulsa, with 24 stolen bases and 26 doubles.

Everyone else? According to Woo, Eduardo Quintero, Zyhir Hope, Mike Sirota and James Tibbs III are all on the table — and the Dodgers' primary focus isn't just adding to the major-league roster. It's also adding to the Dodgers system, overall.

Understanding Andrew Friedman's trade deadline playbook for Dodgers

Here's the part that puts this all in context: the Dodgers sign the biggest free agents in baseball every winter. And every time they do, they forfeit draft picks. This year alone they lost their second, third, fifth and sixth-round picks for signing Edwin Díaz and Kyle Tucker. Their bonus pool is the smallest in baseball at just under $4 million this year and they enter the draft with just one pick in the first 130 selections.

When you can't replenish the system through the draft the way other teams can, you find another way. Trading from outfield surplus to acquire high-ceiling prospects in catching, middle infield, and starting pitching isn't a luxury move — it's a structural necessity. The Athletic report specifically notes the Dodgers are searching for high-ceiling prospects, not just major-league-ready talent. That's Friedman rebuilding the system from the inside while still competing for a World Series.

He's done it before. In 2024 he sent Michael Busch and Yency Almonte to the Cubs for Jackson Ferris and Zyhir Hope. A year later, Gavin Lux went to Cincinnati and came back as Mike Sirota plus a pick that became Charles Davalan. Each deal addressed a depth gap through a surplus position. This deadline is the same equation, just bigger.

The Top-100 Update Changes the Math

Last week's MLB Top 100 update — the most significant in-season update of the year — confirmed exactly why the Dodgers can afford to deal from this group. Nine Dodgers prospects now appear on the top 100, the most of any organization in baseball. De Paula climbed to No. 4. Sirota jumped from 38 all the way to 12. Hope sits at 20th on the list. Quintero quietly moved to No. 33. Emil Morales is at 49, River Ryan at 72, Davalan at 89. And, two names made their top-100 appearances: Christian Zazueta (91) and James Tibbs III (97).

Tibbs has earned it. His 21 home runs, 41 extra-base hits and 170 total bases at Triple-A is the best production of any Dodgers prospect this season. His top-100 appearance is also his peak trade value moment: a former first-round pick, cracking the national list on the back of a Triple-A breakout, with no path to a big-league outfield that already has Tucker, Pages and Hernández under contract. That's the exact profile you move when the market values him most.

The Bigger Picture

The Dodgers now have nine top-100 prospects, and six of them are outfielders. That's a remarkable organizational achievement — and also a structural imbalance. A system built to compete long-term needs more balance: pitching depth beyond River Ryan and Jackson Ferris in the upper minors, a catching pipeline, and middle-infield options behind Emil Morales. Trading outfield surplus to fill those gaps isn't just smart deadline maneuvering. It's how Friedman keeps the machine running while the major-league team chases a third consecutive title.

De Paula is the foundation everything is built around. The rest are assets that exist to be leveraged at the right moment.

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