Dodgers: Dave Roberts Explains Why Gavin Lux was Optioned to Alternate Site

The Dodgers made some headlines on Tuesday when the team announced that top prospect Gavin Lux had been optioned. The team will be sending Lux to their off-site facility at USC to get more reps and at-bats in. 

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts appeared in front of the media on Tuesday to talk about the move. For Roberts, getting Lux caught up was the first priority, and moving him to USC allows that to happen much more effectively. 

There’s a lot that goes into his swing, and he just wasn’t at this point in time, wasn’t synced up. Nothing against him, it’s just right now where we’re at, we hope for Gavin to log some at-bats at the off-site, at USC and be ready when called upon.

Lux showed up to camp late for personal reasons and never really got that many live at-bats. He only got three in the combined two games against the Diamondbacks the last few days. When he was in, the Dodgers second baseman also airmailed an easy throw from first base. Roberts clarified that his defense did not play into the decision. 

I had a conversation with Gavin yesterday late afternoon, and so it certainly probably bled into play. So Gavin is very strong in mind and he understands defense versus offense, so that has nothing to do with it. It was just one of those nights and it’s probably my fault as far as I talked to him, I wanted to be forthright. And so it probably bled into his psyche a little bit. 

Lux will be getting reps in with some of the other players left in the 60-man player pool. Roberts did say that there will not be enough Dodgers players there to do full intrasquad games. Instead, they will resort to live batting practice and simulated games to get Lux going. Hernandez, Taylor, and Muncy will all get time at second to fill the void he leaves.

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