Every July, the same crowd that panics when the propane tank hits a quarter starts screaming that the Dodgers need to trade the farm. This year the emergency is Shohei Ohtani’s knee — the reigning MVP won’t pitch for the foreseeable future — and catcher Will Smith’s neck, which has kept him sidelined since early June and won’t let him go until August at the earliest.
Two cornerstone guys limping into the All-Star break. In most clubhouses, that’s a fire alarm. In Los Angeles, it’s a Tuesday.
According to Katie Woo of The Athletic, citing multiple team sources familiar with the Dodgers’ thinking, neither injury will have much impact on the team’s trade deadline strategy. The Dodgers don’t scramble to patch holes. They didn’t last year, when the approach won them a World Series, and they won’t this year.
Woo reported that despite Smith’s prolonged absence, the Dodgers do not plan to pursue major-league catching depth. They’ll keep handing the bulk of the starts to Dalton Rushing, who’s posted an .803 OPS in Smith’s place. Now, I don’t love OPS as a be-all metric — it mashes two different skills into one number like judging a quarterback by combined passing and rushing yards — but .803 from a rookie catcher asked to hold down a championship lineup? The film doesn’t lie. That’s production.
On the pitching side, Ohtani’s uncertainty hasn’t created what the rumor mill keeps calling “extra incentive” to push for Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal. Skubal would be the top arm available at the deadline — if the Tigers, sitting four and a half games out of a playoff spot in a weak American League, even decide to sell. The Dodgers apparently aren’t biting. They don’t need to.
Here’s why: when Ohtani goes down, they slide Blake Snell into the rotation. Two-time Cy Young winner. That’s not a patch job. That’s like losing your starting tailback and handing off to a kid who already rushed for 2,000 yards at the varsity level. Most franchises don’t have that sitting in the barn. The Dodgers do.
The organizational depth runs deeper than pitcher and catcher. Woo’s reporting notes the Dodgers have infielders ready to spell starters and a minor-league outfield corps that most big-league clubs would happily start tomorrow. That’s the kind of roster construction that lets a front office sit still at the deadline while everyone else is sweating through their polos.
There’s a temptation to call this arrogance. It isn’t. It’s depth — the same thing that won them a title in 2024. You build the roster for the worst-case scenario in January, not in a panic on July 30. The Dodgers built it. Now they’re living off it.
Ohtani’s knee will heal or it won’t. Smith’s neck will come around or it won’t. Either way, the Dodgers aren’t reshuffling their plans for a trade market that may not even have Skubal in it. They’ve got Snell on the mound, Rushing behind the plate, and a farm system stocked like a feed store before winter.
The film doesn’t lie.
