3 former Dodgers players we'll be glad are gone, and 2 we'll wish stayed

Going back all the way to 2000, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been in the top five in Major League Baseball in payroll 15 of the last 23 years. The club has notoriously been known to be one that will aggressively spend money (some would replace 'aggressively' with 'carelessly') in free agency to bring a title to L.A.

Despite having all of the money in the world, the club has not been immune to seeing some of its players join other clubs and hit a whole new level in their game.

After finishing atop the NL West in nine of the past 10 years, the 2023 Dodgers are still in the top five of most MLB power rankings, but without quite as much star power as there has been in recent years. Gone are the vast majority of the faces that helped this team win 100 games four times since 2017.

Instead, the 2023 version of this team is going to rely on a plethora of relatively new faces to take them to the promised land, including youngsters James Outman and Miguel Vargas on the position player side and Michael Grove and Dustin May on the pitching side of things.

While it's still an exciting time to be a Dodgers fan, there are quite a few players on the current roster that, frankly, are not very Dodgers-like compared alongside some of the massive squads they've sent out in recent years. There would be no David Peraltas, Jason Heywards, Trayce Thompsons, Noah Syndergaards or Shelby Millers. There would be Max Scherzers and Trea and Justin Turners there instead.

Fortunately, the team has hopped on the shoulders of Will Smith and Julio Urías to start the current season and currently sports one of the game's best run differentials.

Let's take some time to reflect and look back on some of the recent names that have left town. Some are sorely missed, some not so much. Either way, it's time to head down memory lane.

Los Angeles Dodgers players we're glad to see gone: Joey Gallo

Joey Gallo has always been a likeable guy over the course of his nine-year big league career. He owns up to his mistakes when he's scuffling at the plate and never points fingers at others. He has shifted from a corner infield role to quietly becoming one of the better defensive outfielders in the game.

Perhaps the best thing about Gallo is the absolutely ludicrous amount of power he has in his bat when he makes contact. Of course, that's exactly the problem for him. This story did not change during his half-season tenure on the Dodgers.

Gallo, 29, spent the first seven years in The Show on the Texas Rangers, emerging as a massive power threat who struck his way out of any serious stardom in the game. He spent the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022 on the New York Yankees, but the change-of-scenery candidate did not benefit from a new home; he got worse.

In 140 games for the Yankees, Gallo hit 25 home runs but managed just a .159 average with an 84 OPS+, striking out in just under 39 percent of his at-bats with the club.

The huge slugger joined the Dodgers at the 2022 deadline in exchange for promising pitching prospect Clayton Beeter (who excelled in Double-A for the Yankees after the trade, by the way). There was a sense that Gallo may perform better in L.A. after having a hard time with the New York lifestyle. However, this did not end up being the case. At all.

In 44 games as a Dodger, he went just 19-for-117 (.162 average) with seven home runs, 23 RBI and an OPS+ of 83. He struck out in just under 42 percent of his plate appearances and also continued to post extremely poor BABIP numbers as well, going from .246 in 2021 down to .222 with the Dodgers.

At the end of the day, Gallo was strictly a rental piece, meaning he did not make much of a financial debt for the Dodgers. However, putting him on the field on any given day was clearly putting the Dodgers at an automatic disadvantage. Best of luck to him with the Twins this year, but he was not a good fit in L.A.

Los Angeles Dodgers players we're glad to see gone: Andrew Heaney

Andrew Heaney, much like Joey Gallo, was a "good intentions acquisition" by the Dodgers heading into the 2022 campaign. After coming up through the Marlins' system as a highly-touted prospect, he broke into the big leagues and experienced his first real successes with the Los Angeles Angels over a seven-year stint.

When he's healthy, Heaney can be an electric presence on the mound. That's the only issue, though; he cannot stay healthy to save his life, a trend that fully continued while he was a part of the Dodgers organization.

All told, the southpaw made 16 appearances (14 starts) for the Dodgers, missing a huge chunk of the season while once again sitting on the injured list. Don't get me wrong, he did well on the mound, posting a 3.10 ERA, 134 ERA+ and 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings in 72.2 frames, but half of a season is not what the Dodgers envisioned when they signed him to an $8.5M contract.

Unsurprisingly, Heaney moved on from the Dodgers during the 2022-2023 offseason. He joined the Texas Rangers on a two-year deal and has made one start during the current season, allowing seven earned runs on seven hits in just 2.2 innings, good for a 23.63 ERA.

Los Angeles Dodgers players we're glad to see gone: Cody Bellinger

This one was a tough one, but you know it had to happen. There's simply no way Cody Bellinger, a former MVP Award winner who completely fell off the face of the earth, couldn't be featured in a list like this.

Everything seemed so perfect for Bellinger and the Dodgers through the first three years of his big league career. He hit the ground running after earning his first promotion in 2017, winning the NL Rookie of the Year, making the All-Star Game and even finishing in the top-10 in the MVP voting.

In 2018, he pulled off an increasingly rare feat by playing in all 162 regular season games for the Dodgers. His OPS+ dipped from 143 to 120, but he still hit 25 home runs and drove in 76 runs along the way.

In 2019, he exploded on offense, hitting 47 home runs with 115 RBI and a .305 average in 156 games. He won the NL MVP, made another All-Star Game, won the Silver Slugger and even earned himself a Gold Glove for his outstanding play in center field. After that, the wheels completely fell off.

The COVID-shortened 2020 campaign was the beginning of the end for Bellinger. He was still a productive player, but he dealt with multiple shoulder injuries and the numbers began to decline for him rather quickly after his incredible performance the year prior. In 2021, he played in under 100 games and was 56 percent below league-average at the plate, as evidenced by his OPS+ of 44.

You get the gist, and you know how last year went for the once-promising star. He hit just 19 home runs and managed a .210 average on the year. The Dodgers made the difficult (but not all that difficult) decision to non-tender him at season's end. The Chicago Cubs signed him in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle, but there's a chance that the 2019 Cody Bellinger is gone for good.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers player we'll wish stayed: Justin Turner

Call me crazy, but Justin Turner has a case for being one of the most important players in Los Angeles Dodgers history, thanks to what he was able to provide the team both on the field and off of it. He never won an MVP and he never led the league in any major offensive categories. Instead, he became the team's unofficial "captain" and provided the club with a steady presence throughout what became a nine-year tenure in L.A.

After failing to find any sustained success in four years with the Mets and two with the Orioles to start his career in the big leagues, Turner joined the Dodgers in February of 2014 on a minor league deal as a 29-year-old who could potentially be wrapping up his career at the game's highest level.

Instead, he immediately proved his value to the club, filling in admirably for the oft-injured Hanley Ramirez and Juan Uribe in the Dodgers infield. In 109 games, he hit seven home runs with a .340 average and 155 OPS+. This was just the beginning for Turner, who kept his high-level performance going each year all the way until the end.

While he never blew anyone away with his glovework at third base, Turner's bat was otherworldly for the Dodgers. He consistently hit at or above .300 and also had a knack for showing up when it mattered most in the postseason. As a matter of fact, Turner's postseason career consists of 13 home runs in 86 games, with 43 runs scored and 42 driven in. He's always been able to come through in the clutch.

Last year, he was statistically above-average with the bat, but he perhaps was beginning to show his age a bit. In 128 games, he hit 36 doubles and 13 home runs with an OPS+ of 117. He also was the slowest runner in the entire league, and seemed no longer capable of playing third base on an every day basis.

This is without mentioning the fact that he had a $16M option tied to his name for the 2023 season. There was just no way the Dodgers were going to pony up and pay him that kind of money, regardless of how great he'd been over the years. His option was declined and he signed with the Boston Red Sox. Like Trea Turner, Justin's presence will be missed now that the injuries are beginning to stack up for the 2023 Dodgers.