ORLANDO, Fla. — With their embarrassment of riches, there’s only so much higher the Los Angeles Dodgers can go.

“We’ve been very aggressive the last couple offseasons. There aren’t as many clear paths to make the team meaningfully better,” general manager Brandon Gomes said Monday evening from a team suite at MLB’s Winter Meetings.

Sure, the back-to-back World Series champs have areas they could upgrade, namely their bullpen and outfield. However, the organization doesn’t consider those to be dire needs and is willing to continue monitoring the trade and free-agent markets until better clarity arises.

“We’re very confident with where the roster is right now on the pitching side, the positional player side,” manager Dave Roberts echoed. “Obviously, there are potential opportunities to upgrade the roster, and we’re always looking to do that. But there’s really no big splash we feel needs to be made because this team is still focused — and there’s some talk about a three-peat.”

Here’s where things stand with several of the Dodgers’ key players:

Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers’ rotation plans

The Dodgers plan to use Ohtani as a traditional starting pitcher, meaning he won’t be on a pitch limit to open the season. However, the rotation is likely to be a hybrid to open the year.

“The thought is to have Shohei being used as a regular starter, but it’s not going to be a regular five-man rotation,” Roberts said. “I don’t want to go down the six-man rotation road, but I do feel that giving him six, seven, eight days off to kind of allow him to continue to stay rested and build up, I think that’s in our process.”

Starting pitching depth is an organizational strength, and the Dodgers seem inclined to work in spot starts to open the year to buy several pitchers — including Ohtani — additional rest days. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Emmet Sheehan all spent time on the injured list last year, and the Dodgers will be proactive in preserving their starting pitching health, especially after another World Series run.

Gavin Stone, River Ryan. Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius are all capable of taking a spot start, and could enter spring as candidates to break into an expanded rotation. Roster flexibility will play into the decision, and the Dodgers will not know exactly what their plan will look like until they finalize their bullpen picture.

“We just have some guys that have earned opportunities to make starts,” Roberts said. “And if we feel, at the end of the day, getting Yamamoto, Roki, potentially Emmet, Shohei some extra days rest and there’s not a cost, that’s the conversation we’re going to have.”

It has not been decided if Ohtani, who will represent Samurai Japan in next year’s World Baseball Classic, will also pitch for the team, or if he will serve solely as a designated hitter. Those conversations, along with whether Yamamoto and Sasaki will play on the team, are still taking place.

“The pitching side of things is challenging and gives us a little bit of pause,” Gomes said. “We’ll obviously continue to have those conversations and figure it out.”

Mookie Betts will continue at shortstop

Not surprisingly, Mookie Betts will return as the Dodgers’ everyday shortstop in 2026. The bigger question is if he’ll be able to supplement his high-quality defense with a more consistent offense. Betts posted career lows in on-base percentage (.326), slugging percentage (.406) and OPS (.732) last season, his first as a full-time shortstop. He also dealt with a serious illness to open the year, which resulted in him losing more than 15 pounds and played a significant role in his slow start to the season.

But the organization is confident in a bounce-back season for Betts. He spent most of last offseason learning a new position, and the fruits of his labor paid off. Betts finished in the top three for a National League Gold Glove Award. But part of his offensive decline could be correlated to the amount of work he needed to put in defensively.

“He put a lot of time in at shortstop, a lot of bandwidth, and it certainly worked because he was a lockdown shortstop for us,” Roberts said. “He had a tough, tough offensive year. He did. He’s human, but it’s easy to bet on the bounce-back year for Mookie on the offensive side for sure.”

Mookie Betts is so smooth at shortstop 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/JH8iP0jJ83

— MLB (@MLB) October 28, 2025

Dodgers remain high on Tanner Scott, despite disappointing first year

Part of the reason the Dodgers are comfortable waiting out the relief market is they believe last year was an anomaly for closer Tanner Scott. Signed to a four-year, $72 million contract in January, Scott struggled with Los Angeles, posting a 4.74 ERA over 61 appearances. Injuries plagued the second half of his season, and he missed the postseason entirely.

“I still feel that last year was an outlier year for Tanner Scott,” Roberts said. “Not to say that he needs to be a dedicated closer. But I feel that he’s going to be much improved next year. There are some things physically that he was dealing with — some that were talked about, some that weren’t.

“There were just some things he kept under wraps about his body, and I think the transition to LA — anything that could go wrong went wrong. He works his tail off. He’s too talented. And his track record was nothing like last year.”

Scott landed on the IL in July with left elbow inflammation, something he tried to battle through. He returned in late August but was ineffective, allowing nine earned runs over 11 1/3 innings to close out the regular season. Scott was unable to pitch during the playoffs because of a lower-body abscess procedure.

Up until last season, Scott was one of the top ninth-inning arms in the league. Scott’s health, along with the returns of Brusdar Graterol and Brock Stewart, will be pivotal should the Dodgers want to rely on their internal relief options coming into the year.

Tommy Edman likely to be ‘delayed’

Edman underwent right ankle surgery in mid-November after the injury pestered him throughout the season. He is unlikely to be a full-go come the start of spring training, and while Gomes indicated the recovery timeline is fluid, he doesn’t expect Edman to miss a significant chunk of the early season.

“He’ll be likely delayed in spring, but don’t expect it to affect a meaningful part of the season,” Gomes said. “He’s trending really well right now. Follow-up was good, and we’ll keep it going from there. … Our hope and expectation is that he’ll be able to be that dynamic, multi-position player.”

Positional flexibility is one of this roster’s biggest assets. Edman was limited last season, with Roberts refraining from playing him in the outfield due to his balky ankle. Depending on Edman’s recovery, the Dodgers could use him at second base again or put him back in center field.