Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Today we continue our series looking at the NL West, position by position.<\/p>\n
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By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n NL West, the third basemen<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at the third basemen and shorstops, ranked from best to worst. Click on the player\u2019s name to be taken to their full stats page.<\/p>\n San Diego Though, as Yogi Berra famously said, \u201cNobody likes Manny Machado,\u201d you have to give the devil his due. Machado is one of the best third basemen in the game, not just the NL West. He hits for average and power and is a defensive stalwart at third. It has already been eight years since he was with the Dodgers.<\/p>\n San Francisco Similar to Max Muncy offensively, Chapman gets the nod because he is a five-time Gold Glove winner at third and stays in the lineup more consistently.<\/p>\n Dodgers There will come a time this season when Muncy will go on one of his notorious cold streaks. Some will say the Dodgers should dump him. Nonsense. He is one of the 10 best third basemen in the league and is a steal at only $10 million this season.<\/p>\n Arizona He finished third in MVP voting in 2022, but has been in decline since then. Can a new team help him recapture some former glory? <\/p>\n Colorado Yes, he\u2019s the son of former Dodger Eric Karros. Don\u2019t let those offensive numbers fool you, they were in limited playing time. He is one of the Rockies\u2019 top prospects and has a bright future. He is only 23.<\/p>\n Shortstop<\/p>\n Dodgers I\u2019ve been writing this newsletter for 12 seasons now, and sometimes I get things very, very wrong. I was against moving Betts to short. But I was wrong. He\u2019s already Gold Glove level there, and here\u2019s guessing his bat rebounds to elite levels this season, because one thing I have learned is to not bet against Mookie Betts.<\/p>\n Arizona If his new level of offense reached last season is for real (his previous high in homers was six), then he could easily move up to No. 1 on this list.<\/p>\n San Francisco He signed a seven-year, $182-million deal with the Giants before last season, then got off to a horrible start, dampening his overall numbers, which were pretty good despite that. There are a lot of good shortstops in the NL West.<\/p>\n San Diego Still a good fielder, but his offense has regressed, as he has been below average the last two seasons.<\/p>\n Colorado Tovar has never met a pitch he wouldn\u2019t swing at, but when he does connect he hits it hard. He won the Gold Glove in 2024, but last season was a setback for him, in part due to injuries.<\/p>\n In case you missed it<\/p>\n Andrew Friedman on team culture, the upcoming season and \u2018noise\u2019 around the Dodgers<\/a> <\/p>\n Shohei Ohtani pitches effectively in first spring training start. \u2018He expects perfection\u2019<\/a> <\/p>\n \u2018It wasn\u2019t just my name.\u2019 Why Miguel Rojas was bothered by erroneous suspension report<\/a> <\/p>\n And finally<\/p>\n Max Muncy hits an important home run in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series. Watch and listen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Until next time….<\/p>\n Have a comment or something you\u2019d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com<\/a>. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Today we continue our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,8006,75961,190,39,2138,14,53632,1165,4332,4333,5954,774,57,3224,4331,4,1479,468,151,75960,75958,75959],"class_list":["post-633582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-baseball","tag-bobblehead","tag-bobblehead-may","tag-day","tag-dodgers","tag-fan","tag-game","tag-kay","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-last-week","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mlb","tag-season","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-spring-training","tag-starter-series","tag-support-system","tag-world-series-last-season"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116261864326946034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Manny Machado<\/a>
Last season: .275\/.335\/.460, 33 doubles, 27 homers, 95 RBIs, 118 OPS+
Career: .279\/.338\/.486, 94 OPS+, 124 OPS+<\/p>\n
Matt Chapman<\/a>
Last season: .231\/.340\/.430, 23 doubles, 21 homers, 61 RBIs, 120 OPS+
Career: .240\/.330\/.458, 119 OPS+<\/p>\n
Max Muncy<\/a>
Last season: .243\/.376\/.470, 10 doubles, 19 homers, 67 RBIs, 136 OPS+
Career: .229\/.354\/.474, 124 OPS+<\/p>\n
Nolan Arenado<\/a>
Last season: .237\/.289\/.377, 18 doubles, 12 homers, 52 RBIs, 87 OPS+
Career: .282\/.338\/.507, 119 OPS+<\/p>\n
Kyle Karros<\/a>
Last season: .226\/.308\/.377, 4 doubles, 1 homer, 9 RBIs, 58 OPS+
Career: .226\/.308\/.377, 58 OPS+<\/p>\n
Mookie Betts<\/a>
Last season: .258\/.326\/.406, 23 doubles, 20 homers, 82 RBIs, 104 OPS+
Career: .290\/.369\/.512, 135 OPS+<\/p>\n
Geraldo Perdomo<\/a>
Last season: .290\/.389\/.462, 33 doubles, 20 homers, 100 RBIs, 136 OPS+
Career: .253\/.348\/.374, 101 OPS+<\/p>\n
Willy Adames<\/a>
Last season: .225\/.318\/.421, 22 doubles, 30 homers, 87 RBIs, 111 OPS+
Career: .244\/.321\/.440, 109 OPS+<\/p>\n
Xander Bogaerts<\/a>
Last season: .263\/.328\/.391, 30 doubles, 11 homers, 53 RBIs, 99 OPS+
Career: .287\/.350\/.446, 114 OPS+<\/p>\n
Ezequiel Tovar<\/a>
Last season: .253\/.294\/.400, 18 doubles, 9 homers, 33 RBIs, 83 OPS+
Career: .258\/.291\/.429, 88 OPS+<\/p>\n