This story was excerpted from Sonja Chen’s Dodgers Beat publication. To learn the total publication, click on right here. And subscribe to get it frequently in your inbox.
After closing out the 2024 marketing campaign with Triple-A Oklahoma Metropolis, prime catching prospect Dalton Speeding has continued to show that he can hit on the highest degree of the Minors. However the Dodgers are going through a well-recognized puzzle in relation to his eventual ascension to the Majors.
For Speeding, MLB Pipeline’s No. 28 general prospect, the query stays: The place would he play on a giant league roster the place he is blocked at his pure place by Will Smith?
“I’ve bounced round. I have been at many alternative positions. It has been a grind,” Speeding mentioned throughout Spring Coaching. “It is as a result of, basically, nobody is aware of. And the fact is, there is likely to be two or three guys who actually know the chances of what place I will play when that point comes. I believe the most important factor is ensure the bat’s prepared and I am ready, from a defensive standpoint, to go do my job.”
Many within the Dodgers’ group imagine that Speeding’s bat is Main League-ready. The 24-year-old is hitting .316 with a .932 OPS via his first 22 video games with the Comets.
There is not any straightforward reply as to the place Speeding would play within the subject within the subsequent couple of years, although. Smith is underneath contract via 2033. First baseman Freddie Freeman is signed via 2027. And no workforce desires its prime place participant prospect to get the majority of his begins at designated hitter, however that is not an possibility both, as a result of the Dodgers pencil in a man named Shohei Ohtani at DH each day.
Final season, the Dodgers experimented with enjoying Speeding in left subject. He made 31 appearances there and impressed together with his athleticism, however the group would not need him to concentrate on studying a brand new place. The purpose is for him to hone in on his growth as a catcher, with begins at first base combined in to get him extra at-bats.
“Clearly, we have had our catchers [at the Major League level] for a very long time and been very profitable. There’s plenty of positives with our group right here,” normal supervisor Brandon Gomes mentioned lately. “So Dalton and [Hunter Feduccia] have to maintain enjoying effectively and growing as issues play out like they usually do. You do not know how it is going to go, however these alternatives come up in numerous methods.”
Gomes acknowledged that the group has to get the timeline proper, within the sense of growth. It is essential for Speeding to get on a regular basis reps, so the Dodgers would ideally not name him up with no plan to get him the enjoying time he wants to be able to proceed his progress each on the plate and behind it. When the time comes, Speeding ought to have some runway and an actual alternative to stay with the massive league membership.
As for the way Speeding has seemed behind the plate, reliever Evan Phillips spent the primary half of April on a rehab task with Oklahoma Metropolis and got here away impressed by the younger backstop.
“A very powerful factor is that he took some initiative and was inquisitive about what he can do to assist me, target-wise, pitch calling, issues like that,” Phillips mentioned. “So having that dialog alone is spectacular to see from a younger catching prospect that we will be counting on in some unspecified time in the future right here within the subsequent months, 12 months, couple years, no matter that’s.
“Then the expertise on the plate too, as a hitter, may be very spectacular. So watching that mixed with the trouble behind the plate, I believe was actually essential to see as a pitcher, from our perspective.”
It is proper according to what the group desires to see from him. There’s nonetheless the query of how Speeding will get these alternatives behind the plate on the huge league degree. He could be excessive on the depth chart within the case of a long-term damage to Smith, however that’s decidedly not a best-case situation. The Dodgers may simply should get artistic to discover a option to get Speeding into their lineup as soon as the group decides he is prepared.
Till that day comes, the message stays the identical.
“We have expressed to him, ‘Be sure you’re pouring into the sport calling and receiving a part of it and actually growing the relationships with the pitchers,'” Gomes mentioned. “We’re lucky that each he and Feddy look nice down there. They’re each hitting very effectively, and including actual worth on either side of the ball.”
