Dodgers Rumors: MLB insider posits 2 game-changing trade candidates for LA

While the Dodgers had one of the most exciting offseasons not only in the team's history but in baseball's as a whole, and were hyped up as a kind of end-all, be-all superteam, expectations hardly ever align perfectly with reality. The Dodgers are very far from terrible — their .619 record through Tuesday's doubleheader against the Mets is the second-best in the National League behind the Phillies and the fifth best in MLB — but the five-game losing streak they just snapped in New York revealed plenty of cracks.

The trade deadline this season is July 30, just about two months away, and while the Dodgers have no reason to be major buyers or sellers, they still need to use it as an opportunity to paste over some of those aforementioned cracks.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic had a few suggestions for how to do that (subscription required). He threw out Tommy Pham and Bo Bichette's names as potentially high-impact trade candidates, who could come over from the eternally hopeless White Sox and the unexpectedly underwhelming Blue Jays. Neither would represent a financial overload, but the Jays would likely have to be blown away by a prospect package to surrender Bichette.

Dodgers rumors: Ken Rosenthal suggests Tommy Pham, Bo Bichette as targets for LA to eye at the trade deadline

After signing a minor-league deal with the White Sox and getting back to the majors in late April, Pham has been hitting well in Chicago. He's batting .294 with a .773 OPS over 30 games. He's no stranger to the NL West, having spent two seasons with the Padres and about a third of one with the Diamondbacks last year, when he hit .429 with a home run in the NLDS against the Dodgers. LA could employ him as a outfield bench option if they'd be willing to ditch Jason Heyward, Kiké Hernández, or Chris Taylor, who are hitting a collective .162 this year.

They'd have to do a lot more shuffling if they were interested in pursuing Bichette, a shortstop. The Dodgers have been strangely, in Rosenthal's words, "bullish" about keeping Mookie Betts at short, despite his adjustment there seeming rocky and fatiguing. Bichette is a two-time All Star and three-time MVP candidate at short, and though his bat has been at its worst this season than it has at any point in his previous six years, it's still better than Gavin Lux's, who the Dodgers would have to bump or trade away somehow to get Betts back to second.

Even if Pham and Bichette aren't on the Dodgers' radar, something most certainly has to be done about the bottom of the lineup and the bench, and LA shouldn't sit idly by when the deadline gets close.