{"id":54002,"date":"2025-08-02T02:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T02:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/54002\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T02:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T02:50:11","slug":"dodgers-pass-mlb-trade-deadline-quietly-add-brock-stewart-alex-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/54002\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers pass MLB trade deadline quietly, add Brock Stewart, Alex Call"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before trade rumors heated up and dream scenarios were briefly envisioned, before the Dodgers<\/a> were linked to a string of big names who all wound up anywhere but Los Angeles, the team\u2019s front office foreshadowed what proved to be a rather straightforward, unremarkable trade deadline on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group is really talented,\u201d general manager Brandon Gomes<\/a> said last week. \u201cI would argue it\u2019s better than the team that won the World Series last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about our internal guys, and the fact that these are veteran guys that have well-established watermarks,\u201d echoed president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman<\/a>, amid a July slump that fueled deadline speculation about what the team would need.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the fact that we see the work they put in, how much they care, just makes it easier to bet on.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, maintaining faith in their current group is exactly what the Dodgers did.<\/p>\n

The team did address its two main needs ahead of MLB\u2019s annual midseason trade deadline. In the bullpen, it reunited with right-handed veteran Brock Stewart<\/a> in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. In the outfield, it added solid-hitting, defensively serviceable 30-year-old Alex Call in a deal with the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n

But compared with the flurry of blockbuster deals that reverberated around them in the standings \u2014 from a head-spinning seven-player shopping spree by the San Diego Padres, to a bullpen arms race between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies \u2014 the Dodgers\u2019 moves were mild, tame and certainly cost-conscious.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t splurge for one of the several established closers that were dealt for sky-high prices throughout the league. They didn\u2019t remake their lineup by landing someone like Steven Kwan, or any other hitter with anything close to All-Star pedigree.<\/p>\n

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In fact, the Dodgers hardly gave up much at all, content to round out the margins of their roster while parting with little in the way of prospect capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t even come close to playing our best baseball,\u201d Gomes said after Thursday\u2019s deadline, which the Dodgers entered with a 63-46 record but more roster questions than they expected to have with their $400-million payroll. \u201cAs we saw last year, what\u2019s most important is to peak at the right time and hit our stride in that second half and be strong going into October. So the belief in this group, and what we can accomplish, is really strong. We feel great about what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

High-A pitchers Eriq Swan and Sean Paul Li\u00f1an (the 16th- and 20th-ranked players in their farm system by MLB Pipeline) were shipped to Washington. But otherwise, the only other departures were 40-man roster players unlikely to factor much into the team\u2019s late-season plans: James Outman<\/a>, who went to Minnesota in exchange for Stewart; Dustin May<\/a>, who was dealt to the Boston Red Sox (where he will get the opportunity to remain in the rotation) for a pair of outfield prospects a few months before entering free agency; and minor league catcher Hunter Feduccia, who was part of a three-team deal<\/a> late Wednesday night that netted the Dodgers two pitching prospects and a journeyman catcher.<\/p>\n

Compared to last year \u2014 when the Dodgers added Jack Flaherty (their eventual Game 1 starter in the World Series), Tommy Edman (the eventual National League Championship Series MVP) and Michael Kopech (a key piece in a bullpen that carried the team to a World Series title) \u2014 it all felt rather anticlimactic.<\/p>\n

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Which, as the Dodgers\u2019 top two executives had noted the week before, appeared to be perfectly fine by them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s always about how does everything fit together with what our current roster is, what our needs are,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cWe went into this season with a really high bar of talent. And outside of losing Evan [Phillips, who was lost for the year to a Tommy John surgery], we\u2019re in that same spot. So we felt like this is an incredibly talented group that, as we get healthy and these guys hit their stride, we feel like we\u2019re in a great position for another deep run into October.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Stewart, the team got a lower-cost addition in what was an expensive seller\u2019s market for relievers.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old has only two career saves, and is unlikely to fix the Dodgers\u2019 ninth-inning problems. But, he is having a strong statistical season with 14 holds and a 2.38 ERA, 14th best in the American League among relievers with 30 innings. He will give the Dodgers a stout option against right-handed hitters, who have just a .104 average and .372 OPS against him. And he comes with familiarity in the organization, still thought highly of after starting his career with the Dodgers from 2016 to 2019 \u2014\u2013 back before he reinvented himself with a fastball that now sits in the mid-to-upper 90 mph range and a \u201cdouble-plus\u201d sweeper, as Gomes put it, he can use for swing and miss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like he\u2019s in the upper tier of right-handed relievers,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cHe\u2019s been absolutely dominant against right this year and performing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Call, the Dodgers gave themselves more versatility in the outfield.<\/p>\n

The right-handed hitter has appeared in just 277 career games over four MLB seasons with the Nationals and Cleveland Guardians.<\/p>\n

But the former third-round draft pick is having a nice 2025 season, highlighted by a .274 batting average, .756 OPS and decent (if unspectacular) defensive grades at all three outfield positions.<\/p>\n

Gomes said Call would mix into the Dodgers\u2019 current outfield group, although not in a straight left-field platoon with recently resurgent left-handed hitting outfielder Michael Conforto<\/a>. He also gives the Dodgers another option in center field, specifically, which would allow Andy Pages to spend more time in a more naturally suited corner outfield spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis guy\u2019s just a straight grinder, works at-bats,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cPlaying against him, he\u2019s always incredibly frustrating to try to game plan for and get out. So I think it was a nice balance to fill some holes and continue to build out with a really, like, functional roster on top of the already really strong talent we had.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was missing from the Dodgers\u2019 deadline, however, was the kind of big splash so many other contenders reeled off this week. The Padres acquired Mason Miller, Ramon Laureano and Ryan O\u2019Hearn without sacrificing any key big-league pieces. The Mets added Tyler Rogers, Ryan Helsley and Gregory Soto to their already stout bullpen, while the Phillies upgraded theirs with the addition of Jhoan Dur\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

Already this year, the rest of the NL was keeping pace with what was billed as a seemingly invincible Dodgers team. Suddenly, the competition now looks that much stronger, not only for the club to defend its World Series, but even preserve the narrow three-game lead it holds over the Padres in the division.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously there was a lot of action today throughout the game, and a lot of teams improved,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cBut we feel really good about this group. Coming into the year, we felt like this was as talented of a roster as we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

That belief has not waned despite the ups and downs of the first four months, including a 10-14 record in July.<\/p>\n

Instead, the club is banking on a pitching staff that is starting to get healthy: Tyler Glasnow, Blake Treinen and (as of this coming Saturday) Blake Snell are all back from extended injuries. Michael Kopech, Brusdar Graterol, Tanner Scott and Roki Sasaki are also scheduled to return over the final two months.<\/p>\n

On offense, meanwhile, the club is confident that slumping stars like Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Tesocar Hern\u00e1ndez will get back on track, and that Max Muncy will provide a jolt in his return from injury next week.<\/p>\n

All that, coupled with the MVP-caliber play of Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith, they believe, should yield a lineup capable of repeating a run to the World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always tricky when you\u2019re in the midst of a swoon in team performance, because in those moments you feel like we need everything,\u201d Friedman acknowledged leading into the deadline. \u201cSo for us, it\u2019s about, all right, let\u2019s look ahead to August, September. Let\u2019s look at what our best-case scenario is. Let\u2019s look at, if we have a few injuries here and there, what areas are we exposed? What areas do we feel like we have depth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently, the Dodgers still liked what they already had, keeping the faith in their current group while other contenders stocked up all around them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before trade rumors heated up and dream scenarios were briefly envisioned, before the Dodgers were linked to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[41070,41072,18127,41073,4279,41074,15757,23257,363,41071,15238,38384,41075,8513,99,1599,19632],"class_list":["post-54002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-call","tag-brock-stewart","tag-bullpen","tag-deadline-speculation","tag-dodgers","tag-fact","tag-group","tag-last-week","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-season","tag-mlb-trade-deadline","tag-outfield","tag-reliever-market","tag-ryan","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54002","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=54002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}