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3 obvious (and 1 unexpected) trade candidates Dodgers should target at deadline
The MLB trade deadline is about a month away, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are sitting in an unfamiliar third place in the NL West. It’s obvious the bullpen will need to be upgraded, as they have the fifth-worst ERA in the MLB. However, there are other areas that can be addressed in order to try and reclaim first place in the division.
The Chicago White Sox are almost sure to be sellers at this year's deadline after back-to-back disappointing seasons. This opens up the possibility of repeating a similar trade the Dodgers made in 2021 with the Washington Nationals, whom they acquired Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from. Although any trade with the White Sox wouldn’t match that level of magnitude, there's still a shortstop and pitcher who can help the Dodgers as they continue to fight for first place.
3 obvious (and 2 unexpected) trade candidates Dodgers should target at deadline
Tim Anderson
The first piece the Dodgers could go after should be shortstop Tim Anderson, who has always been a talented hitter -- he'd batted over .300 every year since 2019. This year, though, he hasn't been the same, as he’s slashing .232/.270/.272, which by most standards, is beyond disappointing. The Dodgers were put in a tough spot with the shortstop position when Gavin Lux suffered a season-ending injury in the spring. The trade for Miguel Rojas seemed like a bandage, since he was someone who could come in and play reliable defense with lower expectations offensively.
With Anderson's disappointing season, the price to acquire him is likely much lower than it was in the past. If the Dodgers are able to tap into the ability he had at the plate the last four seasons, it can likely be a risk worth taking to keep trying to patch the hole at shortstop.
Lucas Giolito/Dylan Cease
The White Sox could also be looking to shop Lucas Giolito or Dylan Cease. Giolito is set to be a free agent at the end of the season, while Cease still has two years of control remaining.
Cease had an incredibly shaky start to the season after coming second in AL Cy Young voting just last year. He posted a 4.88 ERA in April and a 5.57 ERA in May. As for Giolito, those months weren’t kind to him either, as his ERA was over 4.00.
Initially, these numbers would scare most people away from wanting either pitcher, especially considering how the Noah Syndergaard experiment has gone. But both have rebounded in the month of June, with Cease pitching 28.2 innings with a 2.20 ERA and Giolito going 24 innings with a 1.50 ERA. Given the more recent high ceiling that Cease has shown, along with the two years of arbitration, it would be significantly harder to pry him away from the White Sox as opposed Giolito. Regardless, both are ones to keep an eye on if the Dodgers are to target a starting pitcher at the deadline (while also having the possibility to add Anderson to the deal).
Lane Thomas
As we know, the Washington Nationals were sellers in 2021, and they could be yet again this year as they're in the midst of their rebuild. They may not have big names to move at this year's deadline like they have in the past, but there's still a valuable asset or two that contending teams, like the Dodgers, could use.
One of those players is 27-year-old outfielder Lane Thomas, who's had a really good year that's mostly flown under the radar. With a slash line of .299/.347/.516, Thomas has been well above average at the plate all season. He bats leadoff for the Nationals, which likely wouldn’t be the case if he were to wear Dodger blue, as the top of the lineup is stacked. But he can still help in a big way.
It’s the bottom of the Dodgers lineup that has struggled this year. Slotting Thomas into the six, seven, eight, or nine hole could help solve that problem. Another ability Thomas possesses that the Dodgers lack is speed. While it doesn’t show in his stolen base numbers (he only has seven on the year), Baseball Savant has Thomas’s sprint speed at 29.2 feet per second, ranking him 33rd in the entire league. The threat of him on the base paths would be something that opposing teams haven’t had to worry about when playing the Dodgers this year.
Besides the bullpen, the Dodgers don’t need to do anything crazy at this year's deadline. However, being the contenders they are, they should always be looking for ways to improve at reasonable cost, and these players make that a possibility.