As of 6 a.m. PT on Sunday, the day after the World Series ended, all players with at least six years of major league service time who don\u2019t have a contract for the 2026 season are now free agents, per Article XX(B) of the Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
Seven Dodgers are now free agents, headlined by Clayton Kershaw, who is retiring after 18 seasons with Los Angeles<\/a>. He\u2019ll be joined in free agency by Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez, Miguel Rojas, Michael Conforto, Andrew Heaney, Michael Conforto, and Kirby Yates.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Kershaw was relegated to an ancillary role during the postseason, pitching only twice in October in relief, including escaping a bases-loaded jam by retiring his only batter faced in the 12th inning in Monday\u2019s 18-inning marathon Game 3 of the World Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n But during the season, Kershaw was a load-bearing member of the rotation while Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki were on the injured list. Kershaw finished second on the Dodgers in starts (22) and innings (112 2\/3) in 2025, posting a 3.36 ERA with an 11-2 record, and recorded his 3,000th career strikeout on July 2 against the White Sox at Dodger Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez started games at third base, first base, second base, left field, and center field this season, and missed nearly two months in the second half off the season with left elbow inflammation<\/a>. The utility player hit .203\/.255\/.366 with a 70 wRC+ in limited duty during the regular season, but then started all 17 games in the postseason and set the Dodgers all-time record with 92 postseason games played<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since getting reacquired at the 2023 trade deadline, Hern\u00e1ndez has re-signed with the Dodgers on a one-year deal later in each of the last two offseasons. A repeat of that would not be a surprise.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Rojas played all over the infield with Mookie Betts taking over at shortstop, and the veteran infielder started 49 games at second base, 20 games at third base, and 10 times at shortstop. He hit .262\/.318\/.397 with seven home runs and a 100 wRC+ in 114 games. He played mostly in reserve in October but started the last two games of the World Series and hit the game-tying home run in the ninth inning of Game 7 to get into extras<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conforto signed a one-year, $17-million deal last December<\/a> and was below replacement level, hitting just .199\/.305\/.333 with an 83 wRC+ and 12 home runs. It wasn\u2019t for lack of opportunity, as the left-handed-batting Conforto started 106 of the Dodgers\u2019 115 games against right-handed starting pitchers and finished only 16 plate appearance shy of qualifying for leaderboards, where he was near the bottom of several categories. He was not active for any of the four Dodgers\u2019 postseason series.<\/p>\n Yates signed a one-year, $13-million contract in January<\/a> but struggled with a 5.23 ERA and 4.32 xERA in 50 games, with 52 strikeouts. The 38-year-old was felled by three stints on the injured list, twice with<\/a> a right hamstring strain<\/a>, and once with lower back pain<\/a>. Yates was asked Saturday by Kirsten Watson of SportsNet LA if he might retire.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time in my career I\u2019m not sure if next year is 100 percent,\u201d Yates said during the championship celebration in Toronto. \u201cI\u2019ll see how my body feels.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Kopech was a huge part of the Dodgers\u2019 2024 championship run, pitching in 10 of the team\u2019s 16 postseason games<\/a>, part of a bullpen-heavy pitching staff that helped define last October. That took a toll on Kopech, who began the season on the 60-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement<\/a> and later spent another stint on the 60-day IL after right knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus<\/a>. Kopech pitched in only 14 games for the Dodgers this season, and his comeback attempt ended on September 19 with another IL stint, this time with right knee inflammation<\/a>.<\/p>\n The veteran Heaney was released by the Pirates in the last week of August and signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers on August 31<\/a>. The left-hander was called up on the penultimate day of the regular season<\/a>, and allowed three runs in two innings on September 27 in Seattle, in his only appearance for Los Angeles. Heaney was the Dodgers\u2019 62nd player used in 2025, setting a franchise record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of 6 a.m. PT on Sunday, the day after the World Series ended, all players with at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[143238,8974,9307,4279,66346,19294,143239,3031,13090,4293,18559,363,4286,100012,8972,1839,99,12378,8970,36362],"class_list":{"0":"post-267053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andrew-heaney","9":"tag-blake-snell","10":"tag-clayton-kershaw","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-kike-hernandez","13":"tag-kirby-yates","14":"tag-kopech","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-michael-conforto","18":"tag-miguel-rojas","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-mookie-betts","21":"tag-postseason-games","22":"tag-roki-sasaki","23":"tag-seattle","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-toronto","26":"tag-tyler-glasnow","27":"tag-white-sox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}