The Los Angeles Dodgers have a lot of work ahead of them before the season starts, despite the fact that they filled two important needs this offseason by signing Shohei Ohtani and acquiring Tyler Glasnow.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the pitcher that the Dodgers would most like to add, and he is still on the market. There’s no guarantee they can add the right-hander, though, as they are in competition for his services with the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, and a few other teams.

Another position player is still planned for the offseason, according to Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes, who also stated that the team will be opportunistic in seeking to bolster its present roster.

The Dodgers might use the trade market, where they have a few elite prospects that might pique the eye of other teams, to address both of those areas.

The Dodgers could trade Michael Busch or Miguel Vargas for an established player and possibly even Gavin Lux if the transaction includes another position player, according to Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:

Miguel Vargas and Michael Busch, the Dodgers’ top position player prospects, are also becoming more and more likely to be traded, and if the Dodgers can convince the Brewers to include Willy Adames in a deal with Burnes, Gavin Lux may also be included in a trade.

According to Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Dodgers, Busch or Vargas might be traded to a different team in order to receive more playing time:

We’ll just have more clarity along the way. “There’s a lot of different paths we can go down, some of which create more opportunity (for Vargas or Busch), and some of which make it harder,” Friedman said.

Busch is presently No. 2 in MLB Pipeline’s rankings and was named by Baseball America as the Dodgers’ top prospect for the 2024 season. This season, he appeared in four different positions and batted.167/.247/.292 with five extra-base hits and seven RBI in three different Major League stints.

Vargas has subsequently moved from prospect classification and made his Major League debut in the 2023 season. Before spending the remainder of the season at Triple-A Oklahoma City, he struggled for most of the first half as the starting second baseman for the Dodgers.

Lux, who missed the entirety of the previous season due to knee surgery, is expected to start for the Dodgers in 2024.

Though they believe they can improve at shortstop, L.A. may sell Lux if they don’t think he can return to form.

The Dodgers do not target Blake Snell.The only other outstanding starting pitcher available in free agency is Blake Snell; however, his market has not been as lively as Yamamoto’s. A report at the beginning of the offseason indicated that L.A. was one of the teams interested in signing him. More current rumors, meanwhile, indicate that the Dodgers may not be pursuing the left-hander any longer.