3 players the Los Angeles Dodgers gave up on too soon

Fans of every team around Major League Baseball can easily pick out certain players from their team's history that left the organization and took off in another uniform.

The good news is that the Los Angeles Dodgers have a storied history of being on the good side of players breaking out.

I mean, just look at a guy like Justin Turner, who was a weak-hitting utilityman for a handful of clubs before joining the Dodgers and becoming one of the best hitters the team has ever had. Or even Zack Greinke, who won a Cy Young Award in Kansas City, but didn't become one of the best pitchers in the game until he came over to L.A.

Chris Taylor was a utilityman without a job in Seattle before he came over to the Dodgers and won over the hearts of fans thanks to the Swiss Army knife toolset he brings to the table.

You get the point. The Dodgers have historically been good at capitalizing on unrealized talent. As we know, they are far from immune from being on the short end of the stick in situations like this. There are actually quite a few players who the Dodgers gave up on too soon that saw their careers reach new heights once they left the club.

It may be difficult for some, but let's take a step back in time and identify some of the hardest pills to swallow in Dodgers history. Let's rip the Band-Aid off and check out three players the club gave up on too soon.

The Dodgers traded away Yordan Alvarez way too soon.

Jeez, this is just an all-time whiff by the Dodgers.

After defecting from Cuba, Alvarez met the Gurriel brothers (Lourdes Jr. and Yuli) and attempted to sign with the Astros. The club was not able to accomodate such a signing, as Yuli had just been brought aboard on a five-year, $47.5M contract.

Instead, Alvarez signed with the Dodgers in June of 2016 for $2M. Just two months later, the Astros circled back around and acquired him in a trade for relief pitcher Josh Fields, who never amounted to much at the big league level. He had a solid career for the Dodgers in parts of three seasons, but his contributions come nowhere close to what Alvarez has been able to accomplish in Houston.

A handful of years later, Alvarez was up in the big leagues with the Astros, laying waste to opposing pitching from the second he put the uniform on. In 2019, he hit 26 doubles and 27 home runs with 78 RBI in just 87 games. His .313 average and 173 OPS+ provided more than enough statistical cushion to earn him the AL Rookie of the Year trophy.

After missing the vast majority of 2020, Alvarez has since returned to the Astros' everyday lineup and continues to be one of the biggest offensive threats in the game. Just last year, he hit 37 home runs with 97 RBI and a 187 OPS+, earning an All-Star Game appearance, Silver Slugger Award and a third-place finish in MVP voting.

The 25-year-old would look so nice in the Dodgers' lineup right now in place of aging veteran J.D. Martinez. There is little doubt Alvarez would've been the face of the Dodgers' lineup at this point, and while we're happy to see him succeed, this one will forever be painful.

Pedro Martínez put together a Hall of Fame career after leaving the Dodgers.

This one is perhaps the toughest pill to swallow for Dodgers fans. Everyone who is a fan of baseball knows the name Pedro Martínez, and many seem to forget that he actually began his storied career as a member of the Dodgers.

After making 67 appearances (predominantly as a reliever) for the club, Martínez was flipped to the Montreal Expos, where he became one of the best players in Montreal's franchise history. He recently was on a Toronto Blue Jays broadcast and mentioned to the announcers, "The Dodgers did not believe in me. They did not believe my body frame was enough to get it done in the big leagues."

Oh, how wrong they were.

After establishing himself as an Expos legend, Martínez went to the Boston Red Sox and got even better. From 1997 to 2003, he had one of the best seven-year stretches of any player in MLB history. In 201 appearances, he had a combined 2.20 ERA and 213 ERA+, meaning he was statistically 113 percent above league-average in that time. He also won three Cy Young Awards in four years and even finished as high as second-place in AL MVP voting in 1999.

To make matters even worse, Delino DeShields, the outfielder acquired in the initial trade from the Dodgers, did not amount to anything for Los Angeles during a three-year tenure. In 370 games, he had a combined 79 OPS+ and was barely above-average on defense either.