5 former Dodgers players still without a job heading toward spring training

Kolten Wong

Wong had a very short stint with the Dodgers at the end of the 2023 season, after he was released by the Mariners and signed a minor-league deal with LA in August. They brought him up during the home stretch in September, during which time he played in 20 games primarily at second base and hit a very nice .300/.353/.500 with two home runs. That small preview was good to have on his resumé when he became a free agent at the end of the season, but with Mookie Betts moving to second permanently next season, he definitely won't come back to the Dodgers.

He's had flashes of brilliance across 11 years in MLB; he's a two-time Gold Glover and received Rookie of the Year votes and MVP votes (in 2019) during his tenure with the Cardinals. He signed with the Brewers for two years after leaving St. Louis, then was traded to the Mariners for Abraham Toro and Jesse Winker in what turned out to be a lose-lose deal. It would be ungenerous to count Wong out only because of his struggles with the Mariners, as he was a more than decent hitter and defensive asset for the Cardinals and Brewers only a few years prior.

The free agent market for second basemen is thin, so although there's been no public interest in Wong from any other teams at this point, he could still be signed before the season starts, rosters really need to start coming together, and the free agent market starts to thin out even further.