Dodgers Roster: Trayce Thompson is Already the Best Pickup of the Season

Baseball has a funny way of creating its own dramatic storylines. We’ve seen plenty of that over the years in Los Angeles. But the return of Trayce Thompson to the Dodgers has been extremely fun to watch so far. Just 4 years after being designated for assignment by the team, Thompson is back and performing better than expected. 

If Thompson showed up and put up an OPS+ of around 80, Dodgers fans would’ve been satisfied. What more could you expect from a guy that had played a total of 21 big league games dating back to the end of the 2018 season? But that’s not what has happened at all. 

Thompson’s big homerun on Monday night was just the latest in a series of big hits from him. He took a Kyle Freeland breaking ball and parked it in the leftfield pavilion to give the Dodgers the lead for good. It was his second of the year for Los Angeles and by far the biggest. 

Now 13 games into his Dodgers return, Thompson has brought his wRC+ back up to league average. He had gone 1-for-14 in his short stint with the Padres, so he has been even better than league average with Los Angeles. In fact, he’s posting a 141 OPS+ so far.

That’s pretty insane, especially when you consider what the Dodgers had to give up for him to fill n for Mookie Betts. All it cost them was some cash. And Trayce has rewarded that small gamble by posting a 0.4 bWAR in 13 games for them. What a story. 

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