The Los Angeles Dodgers cut bait with their longest-tenured position player earlier this week. Now, his successor could be on the chopping block.
Backup catcher Austin Barnes, who had been in the big leagues with the Dodgers since 2015, was designated for assignment on Wednesday to make way for top prospect Dalton Rushing. Barnes had appeared in only 13 games this season.
With Barnes gone, the Dodgers still have a handful of players hoping the axe doesn’t fall for them next.
One of those players, perhaps with more cause to be worried than anyone else, is utility player Chris Taylor, who has been in LA since 2016 and made the All-Star team in 2021 to go with his two World Series rings.
On Wednesday, Noah Camras of Newsweek named Taylor as one of the three players under the most pressure to perform now that Barnes is gone, strongly suggesting that the 34-year-old could be the next veteran player DFA’d.
“The new longest-tenured Dodgers position player, Taylor has struggled to regain his 2021 All-Star form over the last few seasons. He’s had a sub-.700 OPS in three of the last four years. He’s just 7-for-32 (.219) this season with an OPS of .500, mainly coming in as a defensive replacement,” Camras wrote.
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“Taylor is in the last year of his four-year, $60 million deal. He has a $12 million club option for 2026 that will certainly be declined. However, if he continues to struggle — and the Dodgers feel like they could get better bench production elsewhere — it now feels more possible that they move on from him at some point this season.”
With their sights set firmly on a championship, the Dodgers have already demonstrated that they won’t keep a player on the roster if they don’t feel they can contribute to the cause, even if they’ve meant a lot to the franchise over the years.
Taylor will always be a big part of Dodgers history. But for how much longer, one can’t quite say.
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