Dodgers pass MLB trade deadline quietly, add Brock Stewart and Alex Call

Los Angeles Times

4 days ago

Before trade rumors heated up and dream scenarios were briefly envisioned, before the Dodgers were linked to a string of big names who all wound up anywhere but Los Angeles, the team's front office foreshadowed what proved to be a rather straightforward, unremarkable trade deadline on Thursday afternoon.
'This group is really talented,' general manager Brandon Gomes said last week. 'I would argue it's better than the team that won the World Series last year.'
'It's really about our internal guys, and the fact that these are veteran guys that have well-established watermarks,' echoed president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, amid a July slump that fueled deadline speculation about what the team would need.
'I think the fact that we see the work they put in, how much they care, just makes it easier to bet on.'
On Thursday, maintaining faith in their current group is exactly what the Dodgers did.
The team did address its two main needs ahead of MLB's annual midseason trade deadline. In the bullpen, it reunited with right-handed veteran Brock Stewart 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.
But compared with the flurry of blockbuster deals that reverberated around them in the National League — 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 — the Dodgers' moves were mild, tame and certainly cost conscientious.
They didn't splurge for one of the several established closers that were dealt for sky-high prices throughout the league. They didn't remake their lineup by landing someone like Steven Kwan, or any other hitter with anything close to All-Star pedigree.
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.
High-A pitchers Eriq Swan and Sean Paul Liñan (the Nos. 16 and 20 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's late-season plans: James Outman, who went to Minnesota in exchange for Stewart; Dustin May, who was dealt to the Boston Red Sox for a prospect a few months before entering free agency; and minor-league catcher Hunter Feduccia, who was part of a three-team deal late Wednesday night that netted the Dodgers two pitching prospects and a journeyman catcher.
Compared to last year — 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) — it all felt rather anticlimactic.
Which, as the Dodgers' top two executives had noted the week before, appeared to be perfectly fine by them.
In Stewart, the team got a lower-cost addition in what was an expensive seller's reliever market.
The 33-year-old has only two career saves, and is unlikely to fix the Dodgers' 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 2016-2019 — back before he reinvented himself with a fastball that now sits in the mid-to-upper 90 mph range.
In Call, the Dodgers gave themselves more versatility in the outfield.
The right-handed hitter has appeared in just 277 career games over four MLB seasons with the Nationals and Cleveland Guardians.
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.
While Call's role wasn't immediately clear, he could factor into a platoon with recently resurgent left-handed hitting outfielder Michael Conforto. 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.
For those Dodgers, the moves checked off their two big priorities: Adding another dependable right-handed reliever in the bullpen, and improving their defensive options in the outfield.
What was missing from the Dodgers' 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'Hearn 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 Durán.
Already this year, the rest of the NL was keeping pace with what was billed as a seemingly invincible Dodgers team. Suddenly, the competition looks that much stronger, not only for the club to defend its World Series, but even to preserve the narrow three-game lead it holds over the Padres in the NL West.
The Dodgers, however, see internal improvement as the key to the rest of the season.
Already, their pitching staff is getting 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.
Offensively, the club is confident that slumping stars like Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Tesocar Hernández will get back on track, and that Max Muncy will provide a jolt in his return from injury next week. 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.
'It's always tricky when you're in the midst of a swoon in team performance, because in those moments you feel like we need everything,' Friedman acknowledged leading into the deadline, with the team enduring a 10-14 slide in July. 'So for us, it's about, all right, let's look ahead to August, September. Let's look at what our best-case scenario is. Let's 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?'
Apparently, the Dodgers still liked what they already had, rolling the dice on their current group while other contenders stocked up all around them.