Cody Snavely
WASHINGTON D.C. — The Los Angeles Dodgers are approaching the midpoint of their first full month of the 2025 Major League Baseball regular season, and one issue remains clear: center field.
Entering camp this season, it seemed all but certain that Dodgers utilityman Tommy Edman would spend most of his playing time in center field and make some starts around the Dodgers’ middle infield.
However, after about a week in camp, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stated that Edman would primarily fill in at second base, where he had won his lone Gold Glove Award during the 2022 season.
Overall, the switch made sense as Edman posted a .989 fielding percentage in over two thousand innings throughout his career. However, this left the Dodgers with a positional battle for center field, a battle between Korean utilityman Hyeseong Kim, James Outman, and Andy Pages.
Ultimately, James Outman and Kim were optioned to Triple-A OKC, and Pages earned the final spot on the Dodgers roster.
Despite the defensive problems with Pages last season in center field with a -8 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), the Dodgers were prepared to throw him out again in year two.
Well, after twelve games, the Andy Pages experiment in center field has reached its boiling point amongst the Dodgers fan base, and for good reason.
Not even looking at the defensive numbers, which are already bad, Pages, who is on the team for his offensive value, is also off to a horrid start to the season.
Prior to the start of the Dodgers’ three-game series against the Washington Nationals, Pages was hitting a combined .118/.268/.147 and hasn’t posted the same results against lefties as he did last year, posting a -19 wRC+ this year compared to a 157 wRC+ last season.
Defensively, Andy Pages’s center field experience can be summed up by one play in Philly at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday. All-star first baseman Bryce Harper hit a screaming flyball to center, to which Pages got an awful break and went the complete opposite way of the ball.
The Dodgers are not known for making quick, haste decisions, but at some point, either the defense or offense for Pages will have to improve before the team makes a move in the coming weeks.
Hyeseong Kim, 26, who signed a three-year deal, $12.5 million deal over the winter, is waiting in the wings at Triple-A after being optioned by the Dodgers to work on his swing as he transitions from the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO).
So far, in thirty-three at-bats, Kim has a .273/.368/.455 slash line with a .823 OPS, including four doubles, one triple, and six RBIs.
According to Dave Robert, Kim isn’t part of the Dodgers’ short-term plans on the roster now. However, if Pages continues to struggle, we could see Kim sooner rather than later.
The Dodgers could also revert back to the Tommy Edman in center plan that many envisioned the team would utilize while having Kim play second base. Either way, the options are there, and it’ll be up to Pages to change the narrative and save his spot on the roster.
As we approach Game Two of the three-game series with the Washington Nationals, Dave Roberts confirmed that Pages will return to center field and that yesterday was just an off day for the sophomore big leaguer.
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