Door opening slightly for Dodgers to trade for ideal outfield target

Heading into the All-Star break, seven Dodgers outfielders were batting .211 combined over the first 12 games of July. Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages' good work was solely responsible for almost 100 points of that total — James Outman, Chris Taylor, Jason Heyward, Miguel Vargas, and Kiké Hernández's collective batting average was .125, and Taylor and (Kiké) Hernández's presences in the infield also brought numbers down at second and third base.

The Dodgers' outfield has been a problem for most of the season so far. Heyward has been on the IL twice, Outman was demoted and is almost certainly headed back there after the trade deadline if he's not traded, and Taylor got off to perhaps the worst start of any player in the league.

Before the Dodgers rotation took multiple blows in June, the biggest deadline concern was the outfield. Only (Teoscar) Hernández and Pages' futures seem intact, while the Dodgers will have to make some tough decisions as to their contracted players' (Taylor, Heyward, Hernández's) futures in order to make way for some new blood.

Luis Robert Jr. has been a guy the Dodgers have had their eye on, and so has Randy Arozarena, who Jeff Passan recently noted as a best fit for LA. There was even a moment this offseason where some fans believed (crossed their fingers?) that he'd be a part of the Tyler Glasnow trade.

Arozarena's been having a tough go of things himself this season, but he does still feel like a good fit for LA, and it seems like the Rays would be willing to part with him.

Rays willing to listen on offers for rumored Dodgers trade target Randy Arozarena

Arozarena batted .112 in April and then .178 in May, but came up big in June with a .291 average, five doubles, three homers, and nine RBI. He's faded a bit again in July, but hasn't sunk nearly as low as where he was for the first two months of the year. The Rays, as a whole, are playing average baseball — literally. They're sitting in fourth place and .500 in the AL East, and went 6-6 in July ahead of the All-Star break.

They don't really need to be players at the deadline. They're 5.5 games back from the third Wild Card spot and don't appear to have much of a shot at it given their -63 run differential, but they have a young core that's proven to be effective in years past.

And, crucially, the Rays hate spending money. Arozarena is owed $8.1 million this year, and if he can shape up through the rest of the season, will have an argument for an arbitration raise in 2025, a concept that probably has the Rays seething. He's already their third highest-paid player behind Zach Eflin (making $11 million) and Brandon Lowe (making $8.75 million), so it would stand to reason that the Rays want to find a way to shed him, and the Dodgers could be right there with open arms.