{"id":14109,"date":"2018-07-31T17:43:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T21:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=14109"},"modified":"2018-08-01T09:30:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T13:30:17","slug":"brian-dozier-los-angeles-dodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/07\/31\/brian-dozier-los-angeles-dodgers\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Twins Trade Brian Dozier to Los Angeles Dodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to sell some key assets for prospects, the Minnesota Twins have traded their second baseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/doziebr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian Dozier<\/a> to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/forsylo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Logan Forsythe<\/a>, left-handed pitching prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=smeltz000dev&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Smeltzer<\/a> and outfield prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=raley-000luc&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Raley<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Dodgers today acquired second baseman Brian Dozier from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for infielder Logan Forsythe and minor leaguers Luke Raley and Devin Smeltzer.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Dodgers\/status\/1024403971119579138?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 31, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Minnesota Twins Trade Brian Dozier to Los Angeles Dodgers<\/h2>\n<p>This season, Dozier is hitting .224\/.305\/.402 with a 91 OPS+. He has 16 home runs and 52 RBIs in 104 games played this season. In seven years in the MLB, the second baseman is a career .248\/.325\/.447 hitter with 167 home runs and 491 RBIs.<\/p>\n<p>Luke Raley is considered the 19th best prospect, according to MLB Pipeline. In Double-A, he is currently hitting .275 with 17 home runs and 53 RBI.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Raley has strength and leverage in his 6-foot-3 frame and could develop average power if he adds more loft to his left-handed stroke,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/bringmethenews.com\/minnesota-sports\/report-twins-trade-brian-dozier-to-the-dodgers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MLB Pipeline says.<\/a> &#8220;He handles left-handers and right-handers equally well but could use some more patience at the plate. An average runner out of the batter&#8217;s box who picks up speed underway, he&#8217;s aggressive on the bases.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Twins also are receiving Forsythe,\u00a0who hit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truebluela.com\/2018\/7\/31\/17636428\/dodgers-acquire-brian-dozier-twins-logan-forsythe-two-minor-leaguers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">.218\/.325\/.314 in 189 games for the Dodgers over the past two seasons\u00a0<\/a>and Smeltzer, who in Double-A Tulsa is 5-5, with a 4.73 ERA in 23 appearances.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this being a down season for Dozier, he is known to explode over the second half of the season. In 2016 and 2017, he hit <a href=\"https:\/\/bringmethenews.com\/minnesota-sports\/report-twins-trade-brian-dozier-to-the-dodgers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">.319 with nine homers and 22 RBIs in August 2017, and .302 with 13 homers and 27 RBIs in August 2016.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old Dozier has spent his entire career with the Twins, including an All-Star appearance in 2015. He is joining a Dodgers team poised to make a postseason run. They <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2018\/07\/18\/manny-machado-traded\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">already have acquired third baseman Manny Machado,<\/a>\u00a0who is hitting .304\/.418\/.500 in 11 games played with the Dodgers thus far. It is clear that the Dodgers want to improve on the heartbreaking World Series loss last year by improving their offense. Dozier adds offensive depth and experience as Los Angeles enters the home stretch of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"SwndxVzCSnlLfMvgypHexg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1004533580\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'SwndxVzCSnlLfMvgypHexg',sig:'dyZVveKXVBQ3-DZSkF855QOs10x78yubeUlfO2yFP6E=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1004533580',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to sell some key assets for prospects, the Minnesota Twins have traded their second baseman Brian Dozier to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder\u00a0Logan Forsythe, left-handed pitching prospect Devin Smeltzer and outfield prospect Luke Raley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":14248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"316","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,33,1071],"tags":[68,175,2156,881,92,1856,174,69],"class_list":["post-14109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-twins","category-dodgers","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-brian-dozier","tag-devin-smeltzer","tag-logan-forsythe","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-luke-raley","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Paul Harvey","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}