Kiké Hernández talks leaning into the villain role, Dodgers' future for DC Super-Villains

The Los Angeles Dodgers made their peace with being baseball's villains this season. On Opening Day in 2026, their hype reel was underscored by Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy," taking the moniker readily bestowed upon them by opposing fans and owning it. What Mookie Betts said at DodgerFest in 2024 remained true: "Every game [against the Dodgers] is gonna be the other team's World Series."

Kiké Hernández, one of the Dodgers' longest-tenured players, knows exactly what it means to embrace that role. His 17 postseason homers match Aaron Judge and Hall of Famers David Ortiz and Jim Thome. In LA, Hernández hitting a home run in September is more of an indication that fall is on its way than leaves changing color.

In an exclusive interview with Dodgers Way, on behalf of Warner Bros.' DC Super-Villains, Hernández — who stepped into the role of the Joker for the epic campaign — said leaning into the "October Kiké" reputation is "part my DNA. It's in me."

His favorite villain moment? "It's hard to argue against 2017, Game 5 of the NLCS against the Cubs at Wrigley. Hitting three homers to put the Dodgers into the World Series and eliminate the Cubs on the road. There was something about that day, going into that game. I was pretty arrogant, pretty cocky, and I just knew that I was gonna have a big game. I was trying to [step into] an alter ego. You could say that was my super-villain coming out."

As for the Dodgers as a whole, "It's more important for us to connect with each other as a team. Our opinion is the only thing that matters inside that locker room."

That doesn't mean they're not aware of the noise, though. "Dalton Rushing was getting a little bit of that reputation at the beginning of the year, so that was kinda the inside joke of our team, we were just singing ["Bad Guy"] to Dalton. People think Dalton is this guy, that guy, and he's the complete opposite of what people were putting him out to be, so we were kinda having fun with that with Rushing.

But we have a lot of really likable guys in that locker room. The outside perspective can say that we're villains because a lot of my teammates make a lot of money. At the end of the day, we're just 26 players trying to win ballgames like every other team."

Those 29 other teams know that winning a World Series has meant, and will mean for the forseeable future, getting through the Dodgers first, but Hernández acknowledged that the tides are shifting.

There's been some disagreement on who the Dodgers' real true rivals are, but Hernández said, "Timing has a lot to do with a lot of things. [...] My first year with the Dodgers, the Giants were the defending champs. And then I came back and the Padres were a force and still are. [...] Just by default, you became rivals with the teams that are hard to beat.

"But timing means everything, and we can start saying the Brewers now, because I've been on the Dodgers for 10 years, and I've played the Brewers four out of those 10 years and they finally got the best of us and they did it in a pretty fashionable way, sweeping us. We were saying, 'Everyone has to go through the Dodgers to be World Champs.' Going into next year, everyone has to go through the Brewers because they were the champs and they did it in pretty dominant fashion throughout October."

Kiké Hernández sat down with Dodgers Way to discuss embracing the villain role and his love of DC Super-Villains

It's Halloween, and Hernández's Joker transformation for DC couldn't go unaddressed. But if he were to make his own villain alter-ego from scratch, what would he look like? Would the infamous banana suit come into play?

"I don't think a villain can have a banana suit, because that screams 'nice guy,' you know. But I do think looking at DC Super-Villains, I think the Joker's gonna be a big play in that, a lot of traits from the Joker. And he's not a villain, but I love Peacemaker. I would say somewhat of a mix between Peacemaker and the Joker would create the perfect villain."

As for a Suicide Squad of non-Dodgers teammates: "I'll start with Aaron Judge, for obvious reasons. We got the body there. I'll say José Ramírez, we saw that he has a pretty mean punch. Mason Miller or Misiorowski, one of the two, in case we need to throw something at somebody. Chandler Simpson; you never know if the Suicide Squad's gonna run into the heroes squad, but if somebody needs to catch the Flash, I'm gonna put my money on Chandler Simpson to be able to do that. [And then] Brusdar Graterol, because there's not a person I'd rather have on my side if I get into a bar fight than Brusdar."

And he already has a great villain name. "Bazooka, exactly."

We couldn't let Hernández go without asking for a hint as to his future with the Dodgers. Will he keep the streak alive and announce his own signing again?

"I hope I get the chance to announce my own signing again, that's how I'll know I have a job again. But who knows what's gonna happen with the lockout? But if we get to that point, and I am lucky enough to get a job somewhere in the league, I feel like I've earned the right, been in this league long enough, I've won enough where I can just announce my own signing somewhere. If it's not LA, then hopefully it's an epic place where I would surprise new fans, but hopefully it's LA. We'll see."

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