3 players the Dodgers should keep and 3 they should trade

The Dodgers, the first team to start rolling after the offseason when pitchers and catchers report on Feb. 9, are undeniably in good shape, and that might be an understatement. Not only have they already set themselves up as the heavy favorites to win the World Series in 2024, but they've also given fans a very clear path forward to be excited about for years to come.

However, not everyone's future can be as assured as Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman's, who the Dodgers should and will hang onto for as long as humanly possible. The Dodgers' 40-man is chock-full of talent, but even with the amount of star power they already have, it doesn't mean they can't improve.

Although things look pretty set for the moment, the Dodgers might progress through the season and want to switch things up a bit, or find areas that are more in need of improvement than others. As things stand right now, here are three players that the Dodgers should keep and three they might consider trading down the line.

3 players the Dodgers should keep

Brusdar Graterol

Graterol, who has been with the Dodgers since 2020, had an incredible breakout year in 2023 after three seasons featuring some pretty middle-of-the-road performances. The Dodgers gave him the ball more than ever before in 2023; he pitched 67 1/3 innings, closed 19 games, and opened one on a bullpen day for a 1.20 ERA. He had an elite ground ball rate and velocity on his fastball, which induced a .200 batting average against in 2023.

That kind of dominance led the Dodgers to give him a $1.475 million raise to avoid arbitration this year, making him the third highest-paid member of the Dodgers bullpen after Joe Kelly and Evan Phillips at a $2.7 million grand total. Graterol isn't a free agent until the end of 2026, giving the Dodgers plenty of control and the ability to retain him cheaply. Even if his 2023 season was a bit of an outlier and he regresses a bit in 2024 (and falls victim to poor injury luck, as he has in the past), he'll be an easy arm for the team to retain and call on over the next few years if he can continue to show out.

Evan Phillips

Phillips also had an outstanding 2023 season out of the Dodgers bullpen and is, similar to Graterol, under team control through 2026. Unlike Graterol, however, who will be looking to prove his 2023 showing wasn't a fluke, Phillips is one year ahead of the curve. His breakout came in 2022, his first full season with the Dodgers after they picked him up on waivers from the Rays in August 2021. He pitched 63 innings for a 1.14 ERA and closed nine games.

In 2023, he continued to dominate and was moved into a more frequent closer role, finishing off 36 of the 62 games he appeared in for a 2.05 ERA. This earned him a $2.7 million salary hike going into 2024, which will probably be reflected on the field by the Dodgers leaning on him even more heavily in closing scenarios. Although they did express interest in Josh Hader before he signed with the Astros and Phillips doesn't have the same history of excellence behind him, Phillips was always the Dodgers' best option. He's proven that he can be consistent and the team won't have to pay him free agent money (especially not the kind Hader will be making over the next five years) in order to keep him. The Dodgers are best served pairing Phillips with potential elite closers moving forward, not replacing him. He provides too much surplus value.

Caleb Ferguson

Ferguson isn't quite on the same level as Graterol and Phillips, but he has been a relatively consistent presence for the Dodgers bullpen since 2018. He's certainly exceeded expectations as a 38th round draft pick for LA in 2014 who made his debut in 2018 and has been able to turn out a few 40-60 inning seasons ever since. ERA-wise, his best year was 2022, but he only managed to pitch 34 2/3 innings as he was coming off of Tommy John. The Dodgers leaned on him more in 2023, when he pitched 34 2/3 innings for a 3.43 ERA.

Sell high? Not quite; the Dodgers need to retain all the proven bullpen talent they can get.

He'll be making $2.4 million in 2024, up from $1.1 million, which he and the team agreed on to avoid arbitration in his last arb-eligible year. With only one year of team control left and his ability to perform at a decent level, the Dodgers should keep him through the year and let him go in free agency at the end of the season if they want to upgrade. He's worked in a few different capacities for the team -- sometimes as an opener, sometimes as clean-up, mostly as a middle-innings eater -- and having a stable, known quantity in the bullpen is always a good thing.

3 players the Dodgers should trade

Austin Barnes

As far as backup catchers go, the Dodgers could do a little better than the 34-year-old Barnes. He appeared in 53 games at the backstop on Will Smith's off days or when Smith was DH'ing, and he had his worst batting year with a .180/.256/.242 line. Barnes came over to the Dodgers from the Marlins in 2014 with Kiké Hernández and Andrew Heaney, and has made all of his major league appearances with LA. 2017 was his best year by far; he played in a career-high 102 games and batted .289/.408/.486, but he took a quick downturn in 2018 and hasn't managed to get even close to those numbers again.

He signed an extension with the Dodgers for 2023-2024, with a club option worth $3.5 million for 2025. Given the team's dependence on Smith and Barnes' corresponding decline in playing time (and a powerful glut of catching prospects behind him), the easiest thing would be to keep him through the year and make a decision about picking up his option at the end of the season. However, he could also be packaged up in a trade for a perhaps younger backup catcher and a prospect or two. It doesn't seem like he'll be getting much better with the Dodgers or even have much of an opportunity to do so with Smith putting up All-Star numbers.