So often when it comes to making trades, a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers is immediately assumed to be losing prospects in the deal. Of course, this is a reasonable assumption for a contender who may not want to trade away players that have put contributed to put them in contention.
And yet, when you’re as deep as the Dodgers , they might rather give up players on the 25-man roster in order to preserve the farm system. But if that’s the case, who might be ‘expendable’?
Austin Barnes
This is no knock on Barnes — who came over in the Dee Gordon trade in 2014 — but rather a product of a difficult path to regular playing time. A super-utility player whose primary position is catcher, Barnes has found himself in a log-jam behind Yasmani Grandal since the day he arrived.
Long viewed as a solid prospect, Barnes has been exceptional in limited Major League action this season (his first as a full-time Major Leaguer) — posting a slash of .283/.397/.538 in 126 plate appearances to go with eight doubles, five home runs and four stolen bases.
Still under team control until 2022, for a team in need of a catcher, Barnes has to be an intriguing prospect.
For the Dodgers, there are two drawbacks to trading Barnes. First, Grandal becomes a free agent after next season, and second, there’s no immediate, proven catcher to fill the backup role. Kyle Farmer is on the 40-man roster but has never seen the Majors before.
My gut? It seems like a waste for someone like Barnes to spend so much time on the bench, but I’m not sure the risk of sending away such a quality super-sub this season would justify making a move.
Brock Stewart
With only 37 innings of Major League experience, the sample size with Stewart is small, and yet, the results have been more than encouraging. This season Stewart has been used strictly as a reliever, where he has four multi-inning appearances (nine innings pitched) and has yet to allow a run (one hit, one walk, eight strikeouts).
Last season, Stewart made seven appearances (five starts) for the Dodgers and posted an unimpressive 5.79 ERA. That number could be a bit misleading, however, as Stewart’s first two appearances were brutal (nine innings, 14 earned runs allowed), while his last five appearances were far more impressive (19 innings, four runs allowed).
Like Barnes, the only issue with Stewart is the logjam in front of him. As a starter, he has almost no shot of seeing the mound with the glut of veterans and more highly-touted prospects in front of him.
Then again, the Dodgers can use all the bullpen help they could find, and Stewart has been magnificent this season.
All that said, I could see Stewart being sent out in a trade if it meant preserving one of the Dodgers’ more highly-regarded, higher-ceiling pitching prospects.
Chris Taylor
Once a high-level prospect in the Seattle Mariners’ system, Taylor seems to finally found his groove as a 26-year-old with the Dodgers.
Under team control through 2021, Taylor has been the Dodgers most pleasant surprise at the plate this season by batting .289/.370/.482 with 18 doubles, 10 home runs (three grand slams) and 38 RBIs.
When his tear began, I immediately thought of Taylor as a trade candidate simply because of the Dodgers’ depth around the infield. But then, he kept hitting and kept hitting and kept hitting, along with playing the outfield, and it has become hard to imagine a world where Taylor isn’t a key piece of the 2017 Dodgers.
Sure, it’s safe to assume he can’t actually maintain this pace for an entire season (in his previous 300+ plate appearances in the Majors, Taylor had one home run), but even if it’s anywhere close, he’ll be a significant asset moving forward.
