A right of passage for a notable prospect, particularly one in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, is having your name mentioned in trade rumors on at least one occasion. Joc Pederson, Corey Seager, Julio Urias and Cody Bellinger all experienced the tradition.
Of course, in those cases it was more times than not the Dodgers rejecting overtures from other teams for their blue-chip prospects. Next in line appears to be young outfielder Alex Verdugo. Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi said he doesn’t anticipate trading Verdugo at the July 31 deadline.
Zaidi championed the 21-year-old as being MLB-ready or close to it, which is reportedly the type of prospect the Dodgers want to retain as opposed to package prior to month’s end. Nonetheless, Verdugo continues to draw interest.
According to Jacob Unruh of NewsOK.com, Verdugo is attempting to remain focused on playing, not trade speculation:
“I just really try to focus on my game, do what I can do and just handle the things that I can handle,” Verdugo said. “It’s one of those things where you want to play as hard as you can here and hope the Dodgers don’t want to get rid of you.”
Having already made a name for himself as one of the youngest players in the Pacific Coast League, Verdugo was on the national stage during the 2017 Futures Game and once more in the Triple-A All-Star Game.
He enters play Saturday batting .333/.406/.446 with 20 doubles, four triples, three home runs and 47 RBI in 86 games with Oklahoma City. Verdugo has reached base safely in a career-best 39 games, and earlier this season had a career-high 20-game hitting streak.
He leads Oklahoma City in batting average and total hits (109), and is third on the team in RBI. The Dodgers selected Verdugo out of high school in the second round (No. 62 overall) in the 2014 Draft.
