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Trea Turner was a Dodgers star for a year and a half. Trey Sweeney was a Dodgers farmhand for a little more than an eyeblink.
Both shortstops are key cogs on teams eyeing a World Series title and perhaps spoiling the Dodgers’ dreams along the way.
Last season, J.D. Martinez and David Peralta were veteran bats and clubhouse leaders in Los Angeles. Now wearing other uniforms, they hope to advance deep into the postseason, something they were unable to do with the Dodgers.
Dodgers fans treat Manny Machado like a long lost villain, showering him with boos every time he returns to Chavez Ravine. Alex Verdugo was popular in L.A. and his trade netted the Dodgers Mookie Betts. Yet both present roadblocks in the Dodgers’ quest to win their first full-season championship since 1988. The Dodgers won the World Series in 2020 during the COVID-shortened season.
The baseball experts considered most adept at calculating statistical probabilities peg the likelihood of the Dodgers winning the World Series at less than 20%.
Those and other former Dodgers are sprinkled throughout rosters of teams still alive in the playoffs. Let’s take a look at each one:
Trey Sweeney, SS, Tigers: The 20th overall pick in the 2021 draft by the Yankees out of Eastern Illinois, Sweeney was stuck behind budding star Anthony Volpe and traded to the Dodgers last offseason for reliever Victor González and minor league infielder Jorbit Vivas.
Despite their clear void at shortstop last spring — Gavin Lux failed at the position, Betts took a crash course in playing there and Miguel Rojas was considered a part-time plug-in — the Dodgers never seriously considered Sweeney as an option. He was viewed as average in every phase of the game and exceptional at none.
The Detroit Tigers held him in higher regard, however, trading front-of-the-rotation starter Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers in July for Sweeney and minor league catcher Thayron Liranzo. Sweeney was promoted from triple-A on Aug. 16 to fill in for the hugely disappointing and overpaid Javier Báez, who is out for the season with a hip injury.
Sweeney has provided above-average defense and enough offense to justify his starting role. Meanwhile, Flaherty will be the Dodgers’ Game 2 starter Sunday in the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres.
The Dodgers and San Diego Padres will meet in the National League Division Series. Here are eight things the Dodgers will need to be wary of in the series.
Zach McKinstry, IF/OF, Tigers: Another Dodgers castoff finding a home in Detroit is McKinstry, who has played shortstop, third base, second base and two outfield positions this season. He started at third and hit a double in the Tigers’ series-clinching wild-card win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday.
McKinstry, a 33rd-round pick out of Central Michigan in 2016, made a splash with the Dodgers early in 2021, filling in for the injured Cody Bellinger and Betts and impressing manager Dave Roberts, who said: “He’s kind of cut from that Chris Taylor cloth, where it doesn’t matter where he plays, he just wants to play, and he’ll figure it out and make the plays.”
After batting .303 with four homers and 14 runs batted in in his first 16 games that year, McKinstry bounced up and down between the Dodgers and triple-A until being traded to the Chicago Cubs at the 2022 July 30, deadline for reliever Chris Martin, who blossomed during his two months in L.A.
The Tigers acquired McKinstry before the 2023 season and he has proved to be a valuable utility man, playing every position except catcher — yes, he’s even mopped up on the mound on four occasions.
Kenta Maeda, RHP, Tigers: Maeda was a reliable starter from 2016 to 2019 with the Dodgers after coming over from Japan on an eight-year, $25-million contract. He finished second in Cy Young voting in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season with the Minnesota Twins and signed a two-year, $24-million contract with the Tigers despite coming off Tommy John surgery.
After a horrendous first half of this season as a starter, Maeda moved to the bullpen and was reasonably effective. However, he was left off the wild-card roster and it remains to be seen whether he will be activated for the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians. Maeda is under contract for $10 million in 2025.
The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts might not be entering the playoffs with his hottest swing. But he’s been freed from some of the stresses he carried into previous postseasons.
Alex Verdugo, OF, Yankees: Picked by the Dodgers in the second round of the 2014 draft out of Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Verdugo established himself as a proficient major league hitter as a rookie in 2019, batting .294 with 12 home runs in 343 at-bats.
Animated and exuberant, Verdugo was a fan favorite but was traded to the Boston Red Sox in the deal that brought Betts to L.A. He was solid, if not spectacular, in four years in Boston, batting .281 with a .762 OPS in about 2,000 plate appearances, before being traded to the Yankees last offseason.
After a strong start in the Bronx, Verdugo cooled, batting .227 since May 1 and losing his starting job in left field to top prospect Jasson Domínguez in September. Domínguez, however, had defensive lapses and batted only .179 in 18 games, and Verdugo could be in the lineup when the Yankees open the AL Division Series against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday.
Tommy Kahnle, RHP, Yankees: Kahnle spent far more time in the training room and sitting at his locker playing video games than he did on the mound during his two seasons with the Dodgers. They signed him to a two-year, $4.75-million contract before the 2021 season knowing he’d miss that entire campaign recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Injuries persisted, however, and in 2022, he pitched only 12 2/3 innings, albeit effectively. That short window prompted the Yankees to sign him to a two-year, $11.5-million deal, and he responded by posting a 2.40 earned-run average over 92 appearances in 2023 and 2024.
The Padres needed an act of divine intervention to win Tuesday and Manny Machado thinks they got one from Peter Seidler, who died last November.
Manny Machado, 3B, Padres: Machado was an inarguable superstar when the Dodgers acquired him from the Orioles at the trade deadline in 2018, only 25 years old and in the midst of his fourth consecutive 30-plus-home run season. He underperformed, however, especially in the postseason when the Dodgers lost to the Red Sox in the World Series.
Worse, he didn’t run out a ground ball, played with a smirk and explained himself thusly: “I’m not a player that’s going to be ‘Johnny Hustle.’ … That’s just not my personality. That’s not my cup of tea. That’s not who I am.”
Here he is, six years later, having performed in San Diego at a level that could eventually land him in Cooperstown. Still only 31, Machado has 1,900 hits, 342 home runs and 1,042 RBIs. What he doesn’t have is a World Series championship ring, and he and his Padres teammates must go through L.A. in the NLDS to take the next step.
David Peralta, OF, Padres: Peralta, 37, has long been admired as a professional hitter, a dangerous left-handed bat in the lineup or off the bench. With the Dodgers in 2023, he batted .259 with a career-low .294 on-base percentage and .675 OPS. With the Padres in 2024, he rebounded, batting .267 with a .335 OBP and .715 OPS.
He batted .288 with an OPS of .804 against right-handed starters this season, and all of the Dodgers’ starters are right-handed, so he might see some action.
Unlike the last two years, the Dodgers didn’t coast into the postseason, instead playing meaningful games deep into September. Will it make a difference?
Yu Darvish, SP, Padres: The enduring memory of Darvish as a Dodger is him getting shelled for four runs in the second inning of a Game 3 World Series loss to the Astros in 2017. Later it was revealed that the Astros were cheating, using technology at Minute Maid Park to steal the Dodgers’ signs.
Fast forward seven years and Darvish, 38, is still effective, winning his only three decisions in September after missing three months with a groin injury and a family emergency. The right-hander was 7-3 with a 3.31 ERA in 16 starts this season.
Trea Turner, SS, Phillies: Another brilliant trade deadline acquisition put Turner in a Dodgers uniform in the second half of the 2021 season and throughout 2022. Fans appreciated his uncommon blend of speed and power and his otherworldly slides, landing on red dirt as if it was a billowy cloud.
The Dodgers declined to offer Turner a monster free-agent contract, and he landed one with the Phillies to the tune of 11 years and $300 million. His first two years have gone pretty much as expected, and Turner is one of several exceptional players on a Phillies roster expected to make a serious push for a World Series title.
As much as Shohei Ohtani has surpassed expectations on the field this season, his acclimation behind the scenes has been equally noteworthy to people around the Dodgers.
J.D. Martinez, DH, Mets: A productive designated hitter and stabilizing clubhouse force for the Dodgers in 2023, Martinez was unneeded the moment Shohei Ohtani chose to wear blue for the next 10 years. Martinez languished on the market until the Mets signed him to a one-year, $12-million deal less than a week before the season began.
His production took a steep dip from the 33 homers and 106 RBIs he posted with the Dodgers, and he was mired in an 0-for-36 slump only a few days ago. But Martinez had key hits in the waning days of the regular season and his RBI single helped the Mets win the first game of the wild-card series against the host Milwaukee Brewers.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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