How are these members of 2024 Dodgers performing with their new teams?

Baltimore Orioles v Boston Red Sox
Baltimore Orioles v Boston Red Sox | Winslow Townson/GettyImages

The Dodgers' 2025 roster looks pretty similar to their World Series-winning team, but they let a few key players go throughout and after the year with varying amounts of fanfare. The roster crunch was always going to be intense, with multiple pitchers set to come back from long absences with injury, but the front office also wasted no time in adding.

Walker Buehler, Jack Flaherty, and Gavin Lux were all casualties of these roster crunches and moved on to new teams. Jason Heyward, also a victim of an in-season roster crunch, has donned two different uniforms since being cut. How are they doing about a third of the way into the 2025 season?

How are these members of 2024 Dodgers performing with their new teams?

Walker Buehler

After eight years with the Dodgers organization, Buehler left in free agency and took a one-year, $21.05 million deal with the Red Sox via the weird LA-Boston (and vice versa) pipeline. The Dodgers reportedly offered an identical deal to keep their 2015 first-round pick at home, but Buehler moved on to new pastures.

He promptly went onto the IL on May 2 after six starts with a 4.28 ERA and then, during his first start back, got into an obscenity-ridden screaming match with home plate umpire Mike Estabrook that got him tossed in the third. He's pitched another outing since then, a five-inning, two-run effort on May 25. Buehler still doesn't look like the pitcher he was in his prime with the Dodgers, but he's leveled out significantly since his disappointing last season in LA.

Jack Flaherty

Flaherty's stint with the Dodgers proved to be brief and he went back to the Tigers after a prolonged free agency. All things considered, things worked out great for Detroit, who promptly promoted Trey Sweeney, part of LA's return for Flaherty at the deadline, and ended up getting Flaherty back anyway.

However, Flaherty's bumpy performance this season probably isn't exactly what the Tigers were banking on. He's steadied out since then, but he had a difficult three-start stretch when he gave up at least four runs in every outing, which came to a head during a start against the Rangers when he gave up four home runs and was pulled after the third. All told, he has a 3.94 ERA through 11 starts. Although his ERA is dropping with every outing since that Rangers start, his struggles probably aren't what the Tigers envisioned for their No. 2 guy.

Gavin Lux

Lux has probably fared better with his new team than anyone on this list. Although he's cooled down a lot in May, he batted .341 with an .888 OPS for the Reds in April — and mostly as a left fielder. Granted, his numbers there are pretty bad so far (-5 OAA), but the Reds couldn't expect much with such a drastic position switch at this point in Lux's career.

He's also seemingly made peace with being traded from the team that drafted him, to the point where he's made a few thinly-veiled shots at the Dodgers. All in all, this trade worked out well for everyone. Lux gets more playing time in Cincinnati, the Dodgers upgraded their infield, and Mike Sirota, the prospect that came over in the trade, is raking in High-A since he was promoted just a few weeks ago. Everyone's happy.

Jason Heyward

Heyward has been jumping from one Dodgers enemy to another since they DFA'ed him last year. He joined the Astros to close out the season, then took a one-year deal with the Padres, where he's become an offensive liability. He's been on and off the IL since mid-April and went back on with an oblique strain on May 24. In the meantime, he's batting .176 with a .494 OPS.

The Dodgers' decision to cut Heyward last season was pretty brutal — it was after he'd just hit a game-winning homer, and a DFA probably could've been prevented if Freddie Freeman had gone onto the IL earlier — but he wasn't showing enough signs of life before that for the Dodgers to justify keeping him on.