{"id":698385,"date":"2026-05-14T03:03:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T03:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698385\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T03:03:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T03:03:25","slug":"dodgers-hire-jason-heyward-as-special-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698385\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers Hire Jason Heyward As Special Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Heyward will be rejoining the Dodgers as a special assistant in the front office, as first reported by Maddie Lee<\/a> of the Los Angeles Times. Jesse Rogers<\/a> of ESPN reported that Heyward also spoke with the White Sox and Cubs about a position before accepting the L.A. job.<\/p>\n

Heyward, long renowned for his clubhouse presence, did not have to wait long for a new role after hanging up the spikes. Signed out of Henry County High School by the \u201chometown\u201d Braves in 2007, Heyward rocketed up prospect lists before settling as the near-unanimous top prospect in all of baseball before the 2010 season. The 20-year-old Heyward caught fire almost immediately, and rode an above-average left-handed bat, a superlative glove, and tremendous speed to MLB stardom.\u00a0 Given his then-young age (26) and all-rounder performance, Heyward was poised for a handsome reward in free agency after five years with Atlanta and one with St. Louis.<\/p>\n

The Cubs signed Heyward to an eight-year, $184MM deal following the 2015 season. Unfortunately, Heyward\u2019s bat regressed almost instantly: outside of 2019-2020, the offense was average at best (and often significantly worse). He remained a strong defender and Heyward famously had a rousing clubhouse speech that\u2019s been credited with helping to end the Cubs\u2019 108-year championship drought. Following two sub-standard offensive seasons in 2021-2022, the Cubs had decided they\u2019d seen enough and elected to release him in the final year of his deal.<\/p>\n

With only the minimum salary obligation due, the Dodgers elected to extend Heyward a 2023 Spring Training invite. He rewarded their faith with a .269\/.340\/.473 line in 377 regular-season plate appearances, good for a 119 wRC+ (100 is average) that harkened back to his best seasons. Unfortunately, Heyward wasn\u2019t able to recapture the magic in a 2024 reunion with the Dodgers. He would finish out a below-average, yet respectable season between LA and Houston before logging a forgettable 95 PAs with San Diego in 2025 during the last stop of his playing career.<\/p>\n

His retirement announcement<\/a> toward the end of March officially closed the book on one of the greatest defensive careers in modern baseball history. For now, Heyward will look to transition to a supporting role for the next wave of major-league talent. The Dodgers also hired<\/a> Clayton Kershaw in a special assistant position around Opening Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Heyward will be rejoining the Dodgers as a special assistant in the front office, as first reported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,873],"class_list":["post-698385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-jason-heyward"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116570711920440010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698385","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=698385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}