A.J. Pollock And The Dodgers Would Be A Perfect Match

Now that the Dodgers moved on from MLB bad boy, Manny Machado, and dealt away two more of their best players to the Reds this offseason, no doubt they need to acquire more good hitters or 2019 is going to be a long one for a team that has lost in back to back World Series appearances in 2017 and 2018.

David Adler of MLB.com reports:

Sure, the Dodgers have a lot of outfielders, even after trading Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig. But A.J. Pollock would still fit right in.

Los Angeles is now interested in Pollock -- the top free-agent position player aside from Bryce Harper and Manny Machado -- according to reports this weekend from MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal. And that makes perfect sense.

Pollock wouldn't be quite as flashy a signing as Harper, but he won't be as expensive, either, and he'd provide value in different ways. He's easily the next-best thing if the Dodgers are looking to upgrade their outfield entering 2019.

Here are three reasons why Pollock and the Dodgers would be a good match.

He'd balance the lineup

Pollock isn't a better hitter than Harper, but he is a strong right-handed bat, and the Los Angeles lineup currently skews a little left-handed after sending Puig and Kemp to the Reds in December. Pollock could combine with Justin Turner and Chris Taylor to provide some counterbalance to the Dodgers' powerful lefty trio of the returning Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy.

Pollock has a career 113 wRC+ (meaning he's been 13 percent better than league average offensively), and he's coming off a 110 wRC+ in 2018. He had some encouraging underlying numbers, too. Pollock's 40.5 percent hard-hit rate was his highest under the four seasons of Statcast™ tracking ("hard-hit" being an exit velocity of at least 95 mph). And 10 percent of his batted balls qualified as barrels -- the most dangerous level of contact quality, based on exit velocity and launch angle, encompassing the batted balls most likely to be home runs or extra-base hits. That was also a personal best.

MLB average hard-hit rate was 35.4 percent, and league average barrel rate was 6.7 percent. The only current Dodgers regulars who had a hard-hit rate of at least 40 percent in 2018 are Muncy and Pederson. The only one with a barrel rate of at least 10 percent is Muncy.

There's also the matter of Pollock's speed, which gives him an extra dimension. Pollock's average sprint speed was 28.2 feet per second last season, more than a foot per second better than the 27 ft/sec MLB average and just behind the fastest current Dodgers -- Bellinger (28.9 ft/sec), Taylor (28.7 ft/sec) and Andrew Toles (28.6 ft/sec). That also plays into the outfield, because …

He's a defensive upgrade
Pollock has the speed and range to cover center field -- and the Dodgers might have the luxury of putting him in the corners, too, depending on how committed they are to Bellinger in center. The point is, adding Pollock would let the Dodgers run out a strong across-the-board defensive outfield that they often didn't have in 2018, without sacrificing offense.

To read more of the breakdown on Pollock go HERE.