The MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone, and it’s officially time to look ahead to the second half of the season with the current team in place. The Dodgers will be able to get reinforcements in the form of injured players returning and top prospects being recalled, but for the most part, the team we see now is the team the Dodgers are going to be relying on for the rest of the regular season and postseason.
With the end of the trade deadline, though, also comes the spilling of rumors that we may not have known in the moment. And in Jon Heyman’s latest article for the New York Post, we got a pretty spicy rumor regarding the Dodgers’ pursuit of starting pitching at this year’s deadline.
While we knew the Dodgers wanted Justin Verlander, and we knew they agreed to a deal for Eduardo Rodriguez that didn’t come to fruition due to him invoking his no-trade clause, we didn’t know how close the Dodgers were to acquiring old friend Max Scherzer.
Heyman reported that the Dodgers “made an offer of multiple prospects thought to be about the value of Acuña,” the player the Mets got from the Rangers for the former Cy Young Award winner. He added that the Mets obviously “preferred the one big-time prospect” in Luisangel Acuña, the brother of Braves superstar Ronald Acuña.
Obviously we have no idea what the package was, but since Acuña is the No. 43 ranked prospect in all of baseball according to MLB pipeline, it’s safe to assume it was a hefty package the Dodgers offered.
Fortunately (or unfortunately if you wanted the Dodgers to bring back Scherzer), the Mets went with the Rangers’ package. However, this only adds to the fact that the Dodgers were ultra-aggressive in pursuing another starting pitcher this deadline.
It didn’t work out for Scherzer and Verlander, and Rodriguez invoked his no-trade clause to remain in Detroit, but you can’t fault Andrew Friedman and the rest of the Dodgers’ front office, as they clearly tried to add a high-end starter ahead of the deadline.
Some things just aren’t meant to be, and a return to Los Angeles wasn’t in the cards for Scherzer — and probably for the better considering the way things ended in 2021.
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