{"id":531988,"date":"2026-03-19T02:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531988\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T02:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:42:10","slug":"dodgers-officially-add-breakout-spring-training-star-to-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/531988\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers officially add breakout Spring Training star to Opening Day roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dodgers officially add breakout Spring Training star to Opening Day roster<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> second baseman Tommy Edman will be starting the 2026 season on the injured list, so the team is going to have to pivot in another direction.<\/p>\n

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This is why the Dodgers announced that Spring Training star Santiago Espinal will be joining the 40-man roster for Opening Day, Cameron Kiszla of Dodgers Nation wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n

Espinal, 31, signed with the Dodgers this offseason to a minor league contract<\/a> and will most likely compete with Hyeseong Kim and Miguel Rojas for the starting position to begin the year.<\/p>\n

Santiago Espinal’s impressive Spring Training<\/p>\n

The Dodgers have used Santiago Espinal at second base and third base through 14 games and have experience at shortstop and the outfield as well. Through 34 at-bats, the former All-Star is batting .412\/.452\/.676 while hitting two home runs, and is second on the team with 13 RBI.<\/p>\n

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With the same versatility as Tommy Edman, Santiago Espinal has an opportunity to play a key role with the Dodgers this season.<\/p>\n

If he’s able to carry this momentum at the plate into the regular season, Los Angeles won’t be able to do anything but give the veteran a shot.<\/p>\n

In his career, Espinal has played with the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> and, more recently, the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> in 2024 and 2025. Over the past two seasons with the Reds, he’s struggled at the plate, batting .245\/.294\/.322.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, he’s been able to avoid long-term injuries. Something the Dodgers value after an injury-plagued 2025 season.<\/p>\n

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More Dodgers news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers officially add breakout Spring Training star to Opening Day roster originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2319,4294,3031,2323,18559,363,61434,99,63077,8968,364],"class_list":["post-531988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-hyeseong-kim","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-miguel-rojas","tag-mlb","tag-santiago-espinal","tag-sports","tag-spring-training","tag-tommy-edman","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531988","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=531988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}