Since the Guggenheim group purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers from former owner Frank McCourt, a focus has been to restock a barren farm system that once was among the best in baseball.
While the Dodgers have been linked to several elite players over the past few seasons, they stopped short of completing trades that would have required them to empty their stash in the Minors.
Namely, Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Julio Urias. Of the trio, Pederson reached the Majors first.
He was the Dodgers’ starting center fielder on Opening Day in 2015, though lost the job as the season wore on due to prolonged struggles at the plate.
Seager arrived in September and took the league by storm. He’s expected to be the club’s everyday shortstop in 2016.
While many expect Urias to be among the call-ups once rosters expand in September 2016, there’s a question as to whether or not he’ll be with the Dodgers organization come that time.
The Dodgers’ search for a starting pitcher has Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez in the crosshairs. Miami is demanding quite the haul to pry Fernandez out of South Beach, which for the Dodgers reportedly entails a trade package that includes Pederson, Seager, Urias and more.
Los Angeles reportedly discussed trading Urias for Fernandez. While Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman didn’t get into specifics, he reiterated Urias and other players are not necessarily untradable, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“The thing we pride ourselves on is not having any hard-and-fast rules,” said Friedman on Tuesday, the second day of the Winter Meetings. “Being open-minded to having different conversations. It would save us time to have hard-and-fast rules on certain things. But we’re open-minded and we feel that allows us to have the best chance to arrive at the best possible outcome at the end of the winter.”
If the Dodgers were to part with Urias, doing so for a pitcher of Fernandez’s caliber seems apt. Although having undergone Tommy John surgery in May 2014, Fernandez is a premier talent at just 23 years old and won’t become a free agent until after the 2018 season.
Urias’ development was slowed a bit this year as he underwent elective eye surgery that forced the young lefty to miss one month. In 13 starts for the Drillers last season he was 3-4 with a 2.77 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 74 strikeouts and 15 walks in 68.1 innings.
