The Dodgers still don't fully know what's going on with their second base situation. With the Gavin Lux trade getting further away in the rearview mirror and Hyeseong Kim's future still up in the air, there's no straightforward answer. There are workarounds and stopgaps — Kiké Hernández and Tommy Edman going back and forth between center field (also undecided) and second while Kim tunes up in the minors — but it's surely not what the Dodgers wanted when they sacrificed Lux for Kim.
Although there's very little room Dodgers prospects or NRIs to break the 26-man Opening Day roster, they're probably going to need to find a little time for the top prospects, especially those in Triple-A and due for a debut, to get a decent shake at the majors.
One of those prospects is shortstop Alex Freeland, ranked fifth in the Dodgers' pipeline and promoted to Oklahoma City in August after having already been promoted to Double-A in early May.
Freeland has been relatively under-the-radar compared to others in the Dodgers' top 30 — Dalton Rushing, Josue De Paula, Jackson Ferris — but ESPN's Eric Karabell had an ambitious (and incredibly specific) prediction for him in 2025. Karabell wrote, "SS prospect Alex Freeland debuts in May, starts 95 games at 2B and leads the club with 24 stolen bases."
ESPN fantasy writer has incredibly bold (and specific) prediction for Dodgers' No. 5 prospect Alex Freeland
Assuming that this prediction actually becomes a reality, one would have to wonder where Kim ends up. Would the Dodgers really keep him in the minors that long? To accommodate both Kim and Freeland on the roster, they would have to cut one of Hernández, Miguel Rojas, or Chris Taylor; Taylor is the most obvious candidate, but the team has already kept him around this long.
This certainly suggests that Kim dukes it out at Triple-A with Freeland after starting the season in the minors, and Freeland ultimately wins out.
This could actually be an incredibly fun storyline to keep an eye on. If we had to place bets now, Kim would probably be the odds-on favorite — cash is king for the Dodgers, and even though they only owe Kim $2.83 million this year, it's far more than they're paying Freeland — but some prospects need to get some room to breathe on the Dodgers' roster at some point, so why not Freeland?
To start the 2025 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers begin their defense of their World Series title with the Tokyo Series, a two-game set against the Cubs in Tokyo, Japan on March 18 and 19. While not ideal (from a travel perspective) right in the middle of spring training, these tentpole events over in Japan have become a key part of MLB's attempts to expand their global reach, with the Dodgers being an obvious team to feature prominently.
While these game are a lot of fun and a bit of a novelty, they also do count, and getting the season off to a strong start has a lot of value. It doesn't hurt that the Japanese crowd is likely to be heavily pro-LA, with the presence of stars like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki. Being as close to full strength as possible would be ideal.
Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case for this pair of opening games, as it was revealed that Dodgers star Mookie Betts will miss the Tokyo Series, as he is currently dealing with a stomach virus.
Mookie Betts will miss both of the Dodgers’ season-opening games at the Tokyo Domeas he continues to recover from a stomach virus that has kept him out of action since last weekend.@ByJackHarris on what this means to the team.
Dodgers' Mookie Betts is officially out for the Tokyo Series (illness)
Unfortunately, this development with Betts isn't entirely unexpected. Betts missed LA's spring training games over the weekend dealing with the same issue, and was considered questionable for the Tokyo Series before he was officially ruled out.
The good news here is that Betts' illness is expected to be a short-term problem. He is not injured beyond feeling crummy, and should be ready to go once the Dodgers break camp at the end of the month. Having a player the caliber of Betts miss any games that count is not ideal, but this does appear to be a short absence that shouldn't mess the team up too much.
Oddly enough, this isn't the first time that stomach issues have caused Betts problems during the spring. Back in 2020, Betts had another battle with a stomach bug that threatened his Opening Day availability as well. Betts would go on to finish second in the NL MVP race that season, and one hopes that the outcome will be as good this time as it was back then.
