Dodgers Stuff Postseason Hero Enrique Hernández Again Onto Their Roster

For a lot of final summer time, it regarded as if Enrique Hernández had reached the top of the road with the Dodgers. For as well-liked because the workforce’s longtime superutilityman had been, his manufacturing was dreadful, and it appeared solely a matter of time earlier than he received caught in a numbers sport because the workforce ran out of roster spots. Fortuitously for each him and the Dodgers, a go to to the attention physician helped, his manufacturing improved dramatically, and he had some large moments in October whereas serving to the Dodgers win the World Sequence. On Sunday afternoon, simply earlier than the Tremendous Bowl, Hernández himself introduced that he was returning to the fold.

Strolling via the open door pic.twitter.com/hsd4IOpva6

— Enrique Hernández (@kikehndez) February 9, 2025

The assertion refers to normal supervisor Brandon Gomes’ phrases on the Dodgers’ current FanFest. “Clearly, we’ll by no means shut the door to Kiké,” stated Gomes of the free agent, who has performed a significant half on all 4 of the Dodgers’ World Sequence groups through the Dave Roberts period.

“All people’s ready for that information to pop up, to see Kiké again as a Dodger,” Teoscar Hernández stated on the FanFest. “I need Kiké to be again.”

The Athletic confirmed that the 33-year-old Hernández has signed a one-year deal, pending a bodily. No phrases have been reported at this writing, and the transfer gained’t turn out to be official till the workforce opens a spot on the 40-man roster by putting somebody on the 60-day injured record, which might occur as quickly as Tuesday, coinciding with their official pitchers and catchers report date. Final 12 months, the primary time Hernández re-signed with the Dodgers, he made $4 million. On the time, he was coming off a brutal -1.1 WAR season, although he had no less than improved from a 59 wRC+ and -1.3 WAR with the Pink Sox to a 95 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR with the Dodgers, who had reacquired him on July 25 for righties Nick Robertson and Justin Hagenman.

The arc of Hernández’s 2024 season was roughly just like ’23 minus the change of handle, in that he began slowly, hitting for a 59 wRC+ (.191/.258/.299) — once more — within the first half. Simply earlier than the All-Star break, he acted on a tip from Martín Maldonado, his teammate on Puerto Rico’s 2023 World Baseball Basic workforce. “He instructed me that him and a few his teammates wanted glasses, they usually didn’t actually know via the spring coaching take a look at,” Hernández instructed the Los Angeles Occasions’ Jack Harris. A extra thorough eye examination revealed that Hernández suffers from astigmatism in his proper eye, blurring his imaginative and prescient and stopping him from selecting up the spin of the baseball. After being fitted for glasses and adjusting to what he known as a “bizarre” change in his depth notion, his efficiency quickly improved. He hit .274/.307/.458 (112 wRC+) within the second half, trimming his strikeout price from 21.1% to 17.8% alongside the way in which.

All of it appears so easy! But not all the pieces about Hernández’s turnaround traces up so neatly. As an illustration, he chased extra pitches exterior the zone within the second half (33%) than the primary (27.5%), whereas his stroll price shrank from 8.5% to five%. His Statcast numbers additionally didn’t uniformly enhance; as a substitute, he went from falling in need of his anticipated numbers to outdoing them:

The place Hernández did see main enchancment was when he pulled the ball, which he truly didn’t do fairly as incessantly as within the first half. However when he did, he received significantly better mileage:

By the point October got here round, Hernández was hitting the ball even tougher whether or not or not he was pulling it, which he did with the same frequency (36.5%) because the common season:

With the accidents to Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas, Hernández received way more enjoying time than anticipated through the postseason; he hit a strong .294/.357/.451 (129 wRC+) whereas rising as a key catalyst and producing memorable moments in every spherical. Within the second inning of the win-or-go-home Recreation 5 of the Division Sequence, he broke a scoreless tie with a towering 428-foot solo homer off the Padres’ Yu Darvish, the primary of two runs the Dodgers scored whereas eking out a victory over their NL West rivals. He broke open Recreation 3 of the NLCS towards the Mets with a two-run sixth-inning homer off Reed Garrett, doubling the lead from 2-0 to 4-0. Within the fifth inning of the World Sequence opener towards the Yankees, he tripled off Gerrit Cole — simply the workforce’s second hit of the evening — and scored the sport’s first run moments in a while Will Smith‘s sacrifice fly. In Recreation 5, with the Dodgers down 5-0 and hitless via the primary 4 frames towards Cole, he led off the fifth inning with a single, then scored the primary of his workforce’s 5 runs within the body when Cole didn’t cowl first on Mookie Betts’ grounder. With the Dodgers down 6-5 within the eighth, he hit one other leadoff single, this one off Tommy Kahnle, and shortly scored the tying run on Gavin Lux’s sacrifice fly. Two batters later, Tommy Edman scored what proved to be the decisive run on a Betts sac fly.

Hernández’s October résumé is one to behold. The proprietor of a modest .238/.308/.405 (93 wRC+) line for his profession through the common season, he’s as much as .278/.353/.522 (134 wRC+) in 259 PA within the postseason, with 15 homers — tied with Babe Ruth for twentieth all-time. Positive, his elevated alternatives are a product of the expanded format, however a great variety of the 19 gamers above him and Ruth within the rankings are Corridor of Famers or might be some day; in the meantime, Hernández is the one participant among the many high 58 (10 or extra postseason homers) by no means to make an All-Star workforce.

“I do numerous visualization at evening, the evening earlier than the video games, and I attempt to put myself in each place, each state of affairs you could provide you with through the sport,” Hernández instructed reporters after his NLCS Recreation 3 homer. “I visualize myself having success time and again towards their whole pitching workers and issues like that… The truth that I’ve had a fairly good observe document in October, I can’t assist it however [have it] carry me confidence.”

“Kiké has the perfect mentality relating to playoffs, and I feel all people kinda feeds off his vitality. I completely feed off of it,” stated Lux on the time.

The Dodgers have valued Hernández’s versatility ever since president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman acquired him from the Marlins in December 2014. A surehanded defender who can do all the pieces besides catch, he made no less than half a dozen begins at each infield place plus left and heart subject in 2024, plus two in proper; he additionally pitched 4.1 innings of mop-up aid. In the course of the postseason, he made a number of begins at second, third, and in heart subject, and his behind-the-scenes work meant one thing to the Dodgers as properly, as Friedman instructed Dodgers Territory’s Alanna Rizzo on Monday:

“Clearly the impression he has made in October on subject, it was apparent — off subject, this previous October might have been essentially the most spectacular shows of management I’ve ever seen. His connecting with totally different guys. Going out of his approach on numerous totally different fronts was fairly presumably essentially the most spectacular management I’ve ever seen.”

“Quite a lot of instances you’ve gotten a necessity, you’re concentrating on a necessity, you’ve gotten the participant on the high of your record after which others. On this case, it was Kiké or nothing,” stated Friedman concerning his filling a spot on the Dodgers’ overstuffed roster.

As to how he suits in, with the commerce of Lux and the ticketing of Betts for shortstop and Edman for heart subject, Hernández is the main candidate to hold ultimately the quick half of a second base platoon with Hyeseong Kim, a lefty-swinging 26-year-old whom the workforce signed after he spent eight seasons with the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes. Righty Chris Taylor also can play second, however he’s coming of a dreadful .202/.298/.300 (74 wRC+) season that lacked the redemption arc of Hernández, to say nothing of the WAR hole between the 2 (-0.5 WAR versus 1.3). Hernández might additionally function a complement for lefty-swinging proper fielder Michael Conforto, notably if the latter’s 145 wRC+ towards southpaws in 2024 proves fleeting. Taylor and righty Andy Pages might additionally fill that function, although the latter nonetheless has a minor league possibility remaining, as does Kim.

On that word, regardless of Hernández’s turnaround, his 2024 efficiency nonetheless has a few areas of concern. Although he’s lengthy been hailed as a lefty-masher, he’s needed to relinquish possession of the now-retired Madison Bumgarner and thus has produced only a 90 wRC+ towards southpaws over the previous three seasons, in comparison with a 70 wRC+ towards righties. He managed only a 90 wRC+ towards lefties in 2024 as properly, and whereas he did hit .291/.304/.527 (129 wRC+) towards them after the break, that was in simply 56 PA.

Second, Hernández hit simply .162 and slugged .252 towards four-seam fastballs towards pitchers of both handedness in 2024; his .254 second-half xwOBA towards them was one level decrease than within the first half. Earlier than and after getting glasses, he was notably helpless towards four-seamers within the higher third of the strike zone, managing an .049 wOBA and .202 xwOBA towards them whereas whiffing on 32.1% of his swings; by comparability, he produced a .358 wOBA and .332 xwOBA with only a 17.6% whiff price towards such pitches in 2022–23 mixed. His -13 run worth on four-seamers was the fifth-lowest out of 255 hitters with no less than 100 PA towards such pitches. Whereas he made up for it by beating up on sinkers, sliders, and changeups, he doesn’t face any of these pitches as usually. Except and till he closes that large gap in his swing, pitchers will proceed exploiting it.

The Dodgers’ depth and positional flexibility provides Roberts a dizzying variety of choices relating to filling out his lineup, and on paper they may have simply made do with out Hernández. Nonetheless, even within the face of apparent issues, the workforce values his presence past the numbers sufficient that they’ll all the time attempt to discover room for him.