Ranking the Dodgers' Best Minor League Bargaining Chips

With the July 31 trade deadline fast approaching, the Los Angeles Dodgers may eventually have to address the question marks in the back end of their starting rotation by dealing away minor league talent.

Rotation depth beyond Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Brett Anderson has been an issue ever since the Dodgers lost Hyun-jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy for the season with injuries a few months back. Mike Bolsinger and Carlos Frias have filled in with varying degrees of success. But Bolsinger rarely pitches deep into games, and Frias is currently on the disabled list.

The team announced this week that it already traded its No. 10 prospect in left-hander Chris Reed, sending the former first-round pick to the Miami Marlins in exchange for fellow minor league pitcher Grant Dayton.

Yet if the Dodgers truly want to address their main concern at the major league level, they will likely need to part with some higher-level prospects.

It’s safe to assume that shortstop Corey Seager, MLB’s top prospect still in the minors, is off the table—as are the team’s best young pitchers, Julio Urias and Grant Holmes.

That leaves a handful of other options for Los Angeles to dangle at potential suitors looking to unload veteran starting pitchers.

5. Zach Lee, RHP

The Dodgers drafted Zach Lee with their first-round pick back in 2010, but the promising right-hander’s career path has stagnated in recent years.

After earning Minor League Player of the Year honors back in 2013, Lee regressed when he reached Triple-A in 2014. He went 7-13 with a 5.39 ERA that season, which caused him to fall out of the Dodgers’ top-10 prospect list prior to this year.

Although Lee is experiencing a bounce-back season so far with a 2.34 ERA in 11 starts, Los Angeles has repeatedly passed over him when in need of someone to make a spot start. Instead, it plucked pitchers such as Bolsinger, Frias, David Huff, Scott Baker, Joe Wieland and Brandon Beachy from the minors.

Lee is on the cusp of finally making his MLB debut, and there are plenty of teams who could use his services this year. If the Dodgers don’t want to give Lee the long-awaited promotion, he becomes an ideal bargaining chip in trade discussions.

4. Darnell Sweeney, OF/2B

Versatility is something that many MLB teams covet, and the Dodgers can provide that in trade negotiations by floating Darnell Sweeney’s name.

The 2012 draft pick has been ascending swiftly up the minor league ladder propelled by his combination of speed and ability to play both outfield and second base. He owns a .293/.351/.458 slash line with eight home runs and 26 stolen bases in 36 attempts, production that earned him a starting spot in the Triple-A All-Star Game as the team’s leadoff hitter this week.

Sweeney, a switch-hitter, has played 41 games in the outfield and 38 at second base in 2015. But with Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig, Andre Ethier, Scott Van Slyke and Carl Crawford under contract for the next few seasons as Dodgers outfielders, Sweeney’s only realistic hope of making the team next year is as a second baseman.

Current second baseman Howie Kendrick’s contract expires at the end of the season, and it’s unclear whether or not the Dodgers plan to re-sign the veteran. If Kendrick is in the team’s future plans, it would make sense for Los Angeles to offer Sweeney and his multifaceted talent in a potential trade at the deadline.

3. Chris Anderson, RHP

Chris Anderson entered this season as the Dodgers’ No. 3 pitching prospect (No. 6 overall).

Los Angeles drafted Anderson out of Jacksonville University with the No. 18 overall pick in the 2013 draft, and the power right-hander has compiled a 3.57 ERA in 16 starts at Double-A this season.

He possesses some of the best pure stuff in the organization—highlighted by a fastball that reaches 97 mph, per True Blue LA's David Hood—but his overall command is a nagging issue that’s currently capping his progress. Anderson’s career WHIP in the minors is a mediocre 1.44.

While he’s probably still a few years away from cracking a major league roster, Anderson’s potential could make him intriguing trade bait if the win-now Dodgers want to let another team wait around for it to come together.

2. Alex Verdugo, OF

Alex Verdugo is one of the best hitting prospects on the Dodgers. He was the team’s second-round pick last June and crushed rookie ball to the tune of a .353 batting average during the course of 49 games in 2014.

As an 18-year-old, he began this season as the team's No. 5 prospect despite such a small sample size, and the immediate results weren’t encouraging. Verdugo hit just .243 in April and .191 in May at Single-A before watching video and making an adjustment, per Hugh Bernreuter of MLive.com.

The result was a .365 batting average in June. Now 19, Verdugo is back on track and owns a respectable .284/.314/.380 slash line through 75 games. The center fielder’s ability to read and react when faced with adversity at the plate is admirable—and his talent isn’t just confined to the batter’s box either.

Verdugo has already uncorked 14 outfield assists this season.

Traditional projections have him arriving at Dodger Stadium around the same time that the contracts of some of the current big league outfielders come off the books. But that timeline is tough to predict with certainty, which is why the Dodgers may opt to move the budding Verdugo in exchange for an opportunity to win sooner.

1. Jose De Leon, RHP

The fastest-rising prospect in the Dodgers organization is pitcher Jose De Leon.

He began the season at High-A, where he struck out 58 batters and walked just eight in 37 innings while recording a 1.67 ERA. Those sterling numbers earned De Leon a promotion to Double-A, where he has found the going a bit rougher (4.21 ERA in 51 innings).

Still, his body of work in 2015 features 112 strikeouts and 29 walks in 83 innings. His combined ERA is 3.04 in 15 total starts. De Leon will turn 23 in August.

"He always had plus arm strength, but he now consistently sits in the mid-90s with his fastball, occasionally touching 98," wrote Christopher Crawford at Baseball Prospectus. "The slider is a plus pitch with hard, downward tilt, and the change shows the makings of being a solid-average offering."

Baseball Prospectus left De Leon outside of its preseason top 100 rankings but now has him at No. 42 on the most recent list published on July 6.

Los Angeles drafted Jose De Leon in the 24th round of the 2013 draft.

De Leon’s rising stock figures to make him attractive at the trade deadline, and it will be interesting to see if the Dodgers decide to mortgage a bit of their future for a chance at postseason glory in 2015.

All stats are courtesy of Baseball Reference unless otherwise linked/noted.

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