Last season it wasn’t an issue because at least one player was always hurt, but this season the Dodgers have four very good outfielders for three starting spots with Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford, and Andre Ethier.
That means at least one of them is on the bench each game and it also means Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times asked general manager Ned Colletti if he plans to trade an outfielder:
It’s a situation we’re going to have to deal with. But we’re always going to be one injury away from not having to deal with it. It gives everybody a chance to take a breath, get a day. Everybody likes to play, but I think it’s sometimes beneficial to take a day.
Complicating things is that the guys the Dodgers might actually want to trade–read: not Puig–all have huge contracts that teams likely won’t be lining up to take on. And of course the Dodgers probably care less about dumping big contracts than any other team, so having too many good outfielders is a nice problem to have. For now at least.
Oh, and their fifth outfielder, Scott Van Slyke, is making the minimum salary while producing a .974 OPS in a part-time role.
