Dodgers Analyst Predicts Justin Turner on Opening Day Roster, Less High on Gavin Lux
It would appear that not everyone is high on the potential of the Dodgers’ young infielder.
Pedro Moura, a senior writer for The Athletic, recently released his second round of predictions for the Dodgers 26-man roster, which came with more than one surprise.
The first thing to note is that Moura believes a deal will be reached with Justin Turner before the start of the season, leading him to include the fan-favorite in his roster predictions.
Of course, the Dodgers still have yet to sign Turner for [these predictions] to come true, and that has not happened yet. There’s also no reason why a return cannot be arranged. As our Ken Rosenthal has reported, the two sides still stand apart on desired years, but such a gap can be bridged quickly.
This would be welcome news to Dodger fans, who have been clamoring all offseason for Andrew Friedman to open up the checkbooks and bring back Turner to end his career in LA.
While Turner finds himself included in these roster predictions, however, Gavin Lux was omitted instead. According to Moura’s predictions, Edwin Ríos, Matt Beaty, and Zach McKinstry will occupy the bench roles while Chris Taylor takes the starting job at second base.
The only mention of Lux in the article is to acknowledge that he does, in fact, play second base.
Also, Gavin Lux exists as a potential regular second baseman. If he is installed there, that would push Taylor back to a utility role.
A shaky 2020 season has definitely damaged the image of Lux to the general public, but it wasn’t long ago that he was the team’s top prospect full of potential. Many believe that the young infielder will get a chance to rebound in 2021 as a member of the major league roster, but you can remove Moura from that list, apparently.
Pete Moura with the Gavin Lux love (that I purposefully I'm (mostly) putting here out of context). pic.twitter.com/hazltN0FgG
— Clint Pasillas (@realFRG) February 3, 2021
Yes, we can confirm that Gavin Lux does exist, and he will have every opportunity to make the opening day roster in 2021.
In all seriousness, this Dodgers team is absolutely loaded with talent, and more than a few position battles could be seen throughout Spring Training. All predictions for the new season should be taken with a grain of salt, but the key takeaway is this: baseball is now just two short weeks away.
NEXT: Dodgers Thank Kiké Hernandez in an Emotional Video Tribute
But does Lux continue to exist as a top prospect to the Dodgers? There is so little information about him from Dodgerland these days it’s hard to tell. We never did hear what the exact problem was last year. Was it performance? Was it a specific health issue? Normally we’d be getting all manner of updates on how the top prospect was working hard to fix whatever went wrong in 2020 (I.e the Bellinger bay stance follies), but in Lux’s case nothing. Now someone who is a day to day expert on the Dodgers basically leaves him off the roster. That is not a good sign.
Matt Beaty, Zack McKinsey, Edwin Rios and Gavin Lux—all LHB, there in lies a roster balance problem.
But does Lux still “exist” as the Dodger second baseman of the future? The biggest problem with the whole Lux situation is that there has been almost no information from Dodgerville about him and his status. Just what happened in 2020? Was it performance? Was it health? Something else? All we know is that he became the invisible player. Contrast that with the almost incessant stream of stories about Cody Bellinger’s stance woes and changes. Now, you have someone, who’s full-time professional job it is to talk to the Dodger brass and report on the team, leaving Lux completely off the list. That is not a good sign for his “future” with the team.
The biggest problem to us, you mean? There is no reason to think we know everything they know.As far as thinking Pete Moura knows any more than the other prognosticators I’ll leave upto you.
We won’t know or have any info until just before Spring Training perhaps. There has been a lot of signings and other activity for a couple of weeks now but Dodgers have remained quiet.
I agree, the offseason is just heating up and there could be more changes to come in the next 2 weeks.
Gavin Lux will be a star but probably for another team cause dodger management don’t have patience to finish developing . He was the top prospect in baseball and mostly all top prospects make it in the major leagues.
Lux has had all of 138 at bats in the majors. Way too early to give up on him.
Changing the subject, this may be “way out in left field, but since the Dodgers signed Bauer and they (the Dodgers) seem concerned about the luxury tax, how about this for a trade. Send David Price to Boston in return for Kike Hernandez. This would help both teams in different ways. First of all, Price probably still is an outstanding pitcher and every team needs more good pitching except for the Dodgers. This trade would help the Red Sox with pitching help and would allow the Dodgers to lower their payroll and at the same time get Kike back. Just a thought.