Dodgers Opinion: Trade Deadline ’25: How did the Dodgers Do?
Depending on who you ask, this could be a loaded question
TAMPA, FL—After weeks of anticipation, the 2025 Major League Baseball trade deadline is officially over with contenders making the final touches on their 2025 roster, and the sellers looking toward the future.
It was one of the more hectic deadlines in recent memory, with multiple blockbuster trades made by the San Diego Padres, New York Mets, and Houston Astros, who are all significantly better than they were twenty-four hours ago.
As for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had multiple needs at this deadline, such as reinforcements for the bullpen and a corner right-handed hitting outfielder, but Andrew Friedman and Co. were relatively quiet, which has sparked significant debate among the fan base.
So, did the Dodgers do enough this deadline? Let’s dive in and find out.
Who’s In
- RHP, Brock Stewart
- OF, Alex Call
- C, Ben Rortvedt
- RHP, Paul Gervase
- LHP, Adam Serwinsoki
- OF, James Tibbs III
- OF, Zach Ehrhard
Overall, during the final two days leading up to the trade deadline, the Dodgers made only four trades, acquiring seven total players while losing five.
Of those seven players, only two of them will be on the 26-man roster: right-handed pitcher Brock Stewart and outfielder Alex Call.
The other five players will fill out in the minor leagues, replenishing the depth and getting value back for a rental in Dustin May and two players without a spot in James Outman and Hunter Feduccia.
Major League Roster
The Dodgers, who were linked to multiple high-leverage bullpen talents, ultimately balked at the exorbitant asking prices throughout the league and opted to go with a safe bet in former Dodger Brock Stewart.
Stewart, 33, was having a career-year with the Twins, posting a 2.38 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 1.088 WHIP, and a 10.9 K/9 in thirty-four innings pitched this season.
However, what really sets Stewart apart from the crowd is his ability to get right-handed hitters out, an ability Friedman alluded to the Dodgers would target after the loss to right-hander Evan Phillips earlier this year.
Overall, right-handed hitters are batting just .104 with a .237 OPS against Stewart, along with an elite 40% strikeout-rate.
Despite being thirty-three, Stewart is under team control for two more seasons following 2025 via arbitration, giving the Dodgers yet another cost-controlled arm.
On the position player side, the Dodgers also added the right-handed hitting outfielder they were seeking by acquiring Alex Call from the Washington Nationals.
Call, 30, is also having a decent season batting .273/.371/.386 with a 118 wRC+, along with playing above-league-average defense in the outfield.
The right-handed hitting outfielder seems destined to share playing time with left-handed hitter Michael Conforto, whose bat has heated up in July as the former San Francisco Giant is batting .273 with a 132 wRC+ over the past month.
Although Conforto has shown reverse splits this season, Call has also posted an .807 OPS against Southpaws and could strengthen the Dodgers’ defense late in games, particularly following the trade of James Outman to the Twins in the Stewart deal.
Although Call lacks the upside potential of a player like Steven Kwan and has minimal power, he rarely chases pitches or strikes out, evidenced by his 97th percentile ranking in Chase% and 83rd percentile in K%.
Minor League Depth
With the departure of Hunter Feduccia in the three-team trade with the Cincinnati Reds and Tampa Bay Rays, the Dodgers acquired Ben Rortvedt, a 27-year-old catcher from the Rays’ system.
Despite not being on the 40-man roster, Rortvedt had the most major league experience between Feduccia and himself, but has only hit .186 with 510 at-bats. He’ll serve as depth in Triple-A before becoming a minor league free agent this winter.
Joining Rortvedt from Tampa is right-hander Paul Gervase, a freakish 6’10” arm that made his debut with the Rays earlier this year, allowing three earned runs in 6.1 innings pitched.
Gervase has posted monster strikeout numbers in Durham, fanning nearly 40% of opponents while pitching to a 3.12 ERA across twenty-eight appearances, and could be an impact arm down the stretch for Los Angeles.
However, perhaps the biggest steal in the three-team trade was the acquisition of minor league left-hander Adam Serwinsoki, who now ranks as the No.3 ranked pitching prospect in the Dodgers system, per MLB Pipeline.
Serwinowski, drafted by the Reds in 2022, impressed in his first four starts of this season for High-A Dayton, allowing just three earned runs over seventeen innings.
“The 6-foot-5 left-hander keeps opening eyes with what he can do,” reads Serwinowski’s MLB Pipeline profile. “He still has a two-pitch mix, but it’s a good 1-2 combination. Added strength allows him to keep adding velocity, and he averaged 93-94 mph, touching 97 mph, with a four-seamer that features good spin and ride up in the zone.”
Rounding out the final trade of the day, the Dodgers received two minor league outfielders from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Dustin May: James Tibbs III and Zach Ehrhard.
Tibbs, 22, was a first-round draft selection last year by the Dodgers’ National League West rival, the San Francisco Giants, before being shipped off to Boston in the Rafael Devers trade.
Despite only posting a minor league career .730 OPS, Tibbs ranks as the Dodgers’ new seventh-ranked prospect, per MLB Pipeline.
Ehrhard, 22, was also a draft selection last year by the Red Sox in the fourth round and has been known to possess an elite on-base ability and speed threat on the bases.
Who’s Out
- C, Hunter Feduccia
- OF, James Outman
- RHP, Dustin May
- RHP, Sean Paul Liñan (#16 prospect)
- RHP, Eriq Swan (#20 prospect)
Overall, the losses were not as high as those of other teams in the sport, as they only traded away five players: two Major Leaguers and three minor league players.
Major League Roster
Going to Minnesota in the Brock Stewart deal was left-handed hitting outfielder James Outman, in a straight 1-for-1 swap.
Outman, 28, finished third in the 2023 National League Rookie of the Year voting after taking over the full-time center field job after former Dodger Cody Bellinger was DFA’d that offseason.
However, the 2024 and 2025 seasons could not have gone worse for Outman, who saw a steep decline in offensive production, hitting just .136/.245/.269 with a .514 OPS and only six home runs.
Despite having a productive year for the Triple-A Comets this season (.289 AVG, .970 OPS), Outman could not translate that success to the Major League level, forcing the Dodgers to move on.
Another position player that was forced off the 40-man roster via trade was long-time minor league backstop Hunter Feduccia.
Feduccia, 28, was the piece going back to the Rays in the three-team trade on Wednesday.
Feduccia was added to the Dodgers’ 40-man roster last season and had a handful of appearances between 2024 and 2025, but was not a part of the team’s long-term plans at the position with Will Smith under contract for eight more seasons.
The final player traded away was right-handed pitcher Dustin May, a move that was hinted at by multiple MLB insiders in the lead-up to the deadline.
May, 27, will head to Beantown to finish out the 2025 regular season, most likely in the Red Sox starting rotation, before entering the offseason as a free agent.
Despite the 2025 season being the healthiest of May’s career with the righty setting a career-high in innings pitched (104.0) and games started (18), the right-hander posted an ERA of 4.58 this season.
With the return of Blake Snell this weekend, the Dodgers had conversations about shifting May to the bullpen, which was not an idea he was thrilled about, per Dodgers General Manager Brandon Gomes.
Like Noah Syndergaard in ‘23 and James Paxton in ‘24, May was the seemingly the odd man out in the rotation, so the Dodgers got whatever value they could rather than a possible DFA in August.
Minor League Depth
On the minor league side of things, the Dodgers only lost two top-twenty prospects, both of whom were right-handed pitchers.
Swan, 23, had posted a 4.81 ERA throughout his minor league career within the Dodgers organization after being taken in the fourth round in the 2023 draft.
Swan features a high-90s fastball that occasionally exceeds 100mph, and Pipeline’s scouting report commends his smooth delivery. His command is still developing, evidenced by forty-six walks in sixty-nine innings at high-A Great Lakes this season.
Swan’s slider and sweeper both receive sixty grades from Baseball America, indicating strong potential. He can now focus on refining his repertoire and improving his control.
Liñan was having a great season in the Dodgers organization, posting a 2.78 ERA across eighteen appearances.
The righty has looked dominant in the lower minors, though a temporary two-outing stint in Triple-A this season didn’t go well. Liñan has worked mainly as a starter this season, but could be best suited for relief work if he can’t develop at least a decent secondary pitch.
Missed Opportunities
To many fans’ disappointment, the Dodgers did not land a marquee name in the trade market despite being linked to multiple high-profile players throughout the league. However, that was not due to a lack of trying.
According to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, the Dodgers were in the running for additional bullpen arms such as Mason Miller, Ryan Helsley, and Jhoan Durán before reuniting with Brock Stewart.
Ardaya also noted that on the position player front, the team spent most of deadline day discussing a trade for outfielder Steven Kwan of the Cleveland Guardians, but could never reach their asking price.
On the position player front, the team spent much of Thursday attempting to pry outfielder Steven Kwan from the Cleveland Guardians. The asking price was steep – Leo De Vries, the headliner of the Padres’ package for Miller, was the starting point for the Guardians’ ask for Kwan, according to a league source. The club’s interest in the St. Louis Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan never gained steam in trade talks.
While Brandon Gomes stated they’d always be willing to have conversations about adding impact talent, it was reported weeks before the deadline that the team was reluctant to trade away their top prospects.
In the end, they did just that.
Entering the deadline, the Dodgers had six players in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 (Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Alex Freeland, Eduardo Quintero, Mike Sirota, Jackson Ferris) and they kept every one of those names.
Grade
It’s always hard to give a straight letter grade so early after the deadline, especially when there are multiple prospects involved, but it’s hard to give this year’s anything higher than a C.
The Positives: Andrew Friedman set out and got exactly what they wanted: a right-handed arm who excels against right-handed hitters and a right-handed hitting outfielder.
Brock Stewart will make an impact right away for the Dodgers as a fresh arm out of the pen, giving a unit that already leads all of baseball a possible fresh start for the final two months of the regular season.
Alex Call’s bat-to-ball skills are more valuable than the swing-and-miss stuff in James Outman’s game and will provide the team with an above-average defender to use late in innings and a perfect platoon partner with left fielder Michael Conforto.
Getting two top thirty prospects from the Red Sox farm system for Dustin May is also a massive win for the organization, for a pitcher who didn’t have the stuff to be a bullpen arm and did not have a spot in the starting rotation.
The Negatives: The Dodgers are taking a significant risk by counting on multiple injured arms in their bullpen not only to come back, but also to produce as they did in years past.
Right-handers Michael Kopech and Brusdar Graterol are each on the 60-day injured list with significant injuries and will have to be ramped up in just a month.
Tanner Scott, even before his elbow injury, posted an ERA above four and had seven blown saves, which led the league.
Kirby Yates has regressed massively this season and has seemingly lost the competitiveness of his signature splitter.
If one or more arms go down, Los Angeles will be forced to rely on an injury-plagued starting rotation to pick up the workload, which is an even more difficult task.
Offensively, it would have been great to add another impactful bat to the lineup, especially with the struggles of Mookie Betts this season.
However, the team will not bet on their veterans and high-profile players to rebound and play up to their salaries, a gamble that could backfire for Los Angeles if Betts, Freeman, Edman, and Teoscar Hernández don’t revert back to their 2024 form.
Overall, I prefer to remain positive and focus on the best aspects that Stewart and Call will bring to the current roster, as well as the future players in the Pipeline.
But when you see other teams in the National League, such as the Padres, Mets, and Phillies, are improving massively, it outweighs everything Andrew Friedman did this summer.
Have you subscribed to the Bleed Los Podcast YouTube channel? Be sure to ring the notification bell to watch player interviews, participate in shows & promotions, and stay up to date on all Dodgers news and rumors!
