5 Dodgers trade candidates from teams quickly falling out of contention

It is almost never too early to think about ways in which the Los Angeles Dodgers could improve their roster during the 2023 season. The Dodgers seem to be back on track and sit at the top of the NL West for now, but this is far from a perfect team, as injuries and underperformance have taken their toll (as is the case for any team).

The trickier part is actually making a move when you want to, which is hard, considering every team is still "in it" early in the season, even if only in the "we need the fans to think that so they will come watch games" sort of way. It is also hard to forecast potential future needs with limited trade capital. Put another way, you don't want to trade an important prospect early on for a B-level need/want, only to have a more serious situation come up later and then find you needed that guy you traded away to make a deal happen.

However, we can still take some educated guesses as to both A) which teams are not going to be in the hunt for a playoff spot when trade season gets under way and B) what sorts of players the Dodgers could be interested in when that time comes. Is this list exhaustive? Absolutely not. Are all of these teams going to be out of the playoff hunt and looking to move all of these guys? Again, highly unlikely. That said, here are five players that the Dodgers could target in trades as the season goes on.

5 players Dodgers should be scouting in 2023 trade deadline market

Nick Senzel

Lets get this out of the way: the National League Central is not a good division. At all. The Cardinals' devil magic appears to have worn off, no one in the division made big moves to try and grab the reins this past offseason, and one of the two teams in the division with a better than .500 record, the Pirates, seems to have remembered that they are the Pirates and have lost a bunch of games recently. One team hasn't come close to looking good is the Reds, and it doesn't look like that is going to change for a while.

In Senzel, the Dodgers would get a ton of defensive versatility, which the team values. Senzel has the ability to play second base a bit, which is currently being manned by Miguel Vargas, who is not lighting the world on fire, and possesses a bat that has seemed to come to life somewhat this year. His stock isn't anywhere close to where it was when he was drafted, and he will have 2.5 years of team control attached to his value if/when he becomes available, but he doesn't have the track record to be particularly expensive in a trade and could be a nice fit, especially if LA thinks they can unlock some more from him at the plate.