What does the Gavin Lux trade mean for the Dodgers and Reds in 2025?

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds completed an intriguing trade Monday, with 27-year-old second baseman Gavin Lux heading to Cincinnati in exchange for outfield prospect Mike Sirota and a Competitive Balance (Round A) 2025 draft pick that is expected to land in the mid-30s once the order is finalized.

The deal came days after the Dodgers’ signing of Korean second baseman Hye-seong Kim prompted questions about the team’s infield alignment, with Mookie Betts expected to move back to the middle infield and Lux still in tow. The Dodgers initially suggested that Kim could play a superutility role with Betts and Lux remaining up the middle, but they clearly had other plans, opting to flip Lux and the two years remaining on his contract to Cincinnati in exchange for two future assets.

This deal marks the end of an uneven but generally successful tenure for Lux in Los Angeles. The franchise’s first-round pick out of a Wisconsin high school back in 2016, Lux quickly developed into a promising middle-infield prospect with an advanced bat. His rise through the minors hit a crescendo in 2019, when he slugged a ridiculous .719 with 13 home runs in 49 games in Triple-A — an eye-popping figure that was partially the product of the livelier baseball and favorable run environments of the Pacific Coast League but also thanks to a hot stretch that earned Lux his first big-league call-up that September at age 21.

Lux’s power surge that year launched him toward the very top of prospect lists entering 2020, and sky-high expectations followed. As such, there was some disappointment surrounding his gradual development in the big leagues, as he didn’t establish himself as an every-day player until 2022, with the slugging prowess yet to shine through at the highest level. Lux was projected to be the Dodgers’ starting shortstop in 2023, but a torn ACL in a spring training game instead cost him the entire season.

When Lux returned in 2024, he settled in at second base. After a slow start at the plate as he shook off the rust, he had a fantastic second half and provided several key plate appearances during the team’s run through October, including in the decisive World Series Game 5. Although he has never quite reached the statistical heights that his gaudy minor-league stats suggested were possible, Lux’s development into a key contributor on a championship club should not go overlooked.

Now Lux will start a new chapter in Cincinnati following a trade that alters both the Reds’ and Dodgers’ infield pictures entering 2025. Here are the five biggest questions — and some initial answers — sparked by Monday’s swap.

How does Lux fit with the Reds? Drafted as a shortstop, Lux has spent the majority of his time as a big-leaguer at second base, with some occasional cameos in the outfield. At first glance, he would appear to be the Reds’ replacement at the keystone for Jonathan India, who was dealt to Kansas City early in the offseason.

But second base is not exactly a position of urgent need for the Reds. Matt McLain was Cincinnati’s best player as a rookie in 2023, and the 25-year-old was primed to form a dynamic duo up the middle with star shortstop Elly De La Cruz before labrum surgery cost him all of 2024. Now McLain is back and still projected to spend the majority of his time at second, though it’s worth noting that he appeared at third and in center field in the Arizona Fall League toward the end of 2024.

Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said after the trade that Lux will be moved around the diamond, seeing time in the infield and the outfield and possibly even at DH, depending on the matchup. With Lux, McLain, Santiago Espinal, Rule 5 pick Cooper Bowman and Spencer Steer, the Reds have a number of versatile players for new manager Terry Francona to mix and match. The exact optimal alignment remains to be determined.

Most importantly, Lux replaces some of the on-base ability lost in dealing India and brings a much-needed left-handed element. As Krall and many others have noted, Lux was one of the best hitters in MLB in the second half of 2024, and the Reds are banking on him carrying that into 2025. He remains a far lesser hitter against southpaws, and it’s possible he will find himself on the bench against certain left-handers. Overall, though, no matter where he slots in defensively, Lux adds an above-average lefty bat to a lineup that needed a boost, and his production should benefit from the hitter-friendly confines of Great American Ball Park.

What does this move mean for the Dodgers’ infield? The Dodgers’ 2025 middle infield has been a moving target since the moment their World Series parade ended. The offseason began with GM Brandon Gomes indicating the team’s intention to move Betts back to the infield — second base or shortstop — where he spent much of the regular season before playing his native right field all of October.

Then the club signed Tommy Edman to a five-year extension, committing long-term to a versatile player who proved ultra-valuable to Los Angeles after he was acquired from St. Louis at the deadline. Given that Edman was the Dodgers’ every-day shortstop in the postseason, it then became a question of whether he would continue to fill that role, with Betts occupying second, a seemingly better fit for him defensively. What, then, would that mean for Lux?

Things got more complicated with last week’s signing of Kim, a talented 25-year-old with a strong record in the KBO. While Kim has demonstrated defensive ability at positions beyond his native second base — and the club suggested he could serve a superutility role with Lux still on the roster — it sure seemed like an odd fit to keep both left-handed second basemen on the roster. Indeed, it appears the Dodgers prefer to move forward with Kim as their primary option at the keystone. While it’s hard to imagine his overall offensive output matching Lux’s in the short term, the Dodgers’ lineup is more than formidable enough, even if Kim is providing a different amalgamation of value than Lux.

Perhaps most interestingly, the Dodgers appear steadfast in their commitment to having Betts open the season at shortstop. He struggled there at times in 2024 but could benefit from another full offseason preparing to handle one of the game’s most demanding positions. If this holds, Edman will likely slide back to center field, another position with which he is quite familiar.

Was this a good return for Lux? Recall that almost exactly a year ago, the Dodgers made a very similar trade with the Cubs, sending infielder Michael Busch to Chicago in exchange for two talented teenage prospects, left-hander Jackson Ferris and outfielder Zyhir Hope. While Busch was not nearly as established as Lux, he too was squeezed out of Los Angeles’ plans. It wasn’t that the Dodgers didn’t believe Busch could be a good player; rather, his utility on their roster was not as valuable as it would be to the Cubs. In turn, the Dodgers opted to turn their overflow of useful talent at the big-league level into pieces that could benefit them down the road.

Even though Busch has since become a core piece in the middle of the Cubs’ lineup, the Dodgers have to feel good about that trade a year later. Ferris struck out 145 batters in 126 2/3 innings, reached Double-A as a 20-year-old and has become the club’s top pitching prospect. As a former second-round pick out of high school, Ferris’ ascent wasn’t especially stunning, but Hope, who received just $400,000 as the Cubs’ 11th-rounder in 2023, delivered a far more surprising breakout, finishing 2024 as one of baseball’s most exciting outfield prospects. Both players are a few years away from contributing in Los Angeles, but these are the kinds of early returns you hope to see from a trade of this nature.

The return for Lux, though it might not impact the 2025 club, could yield similar excitement someday. Sirota is a player the Dodgers have liked for quite some time, having selected him out of a Connecticut high school in the 16th round of the 2021 draft before he opted to play collegiately at Northeastern. A huge sophomore season with the Huskies propelled him into first-round consideration entering his draft spring in 2024, but a step back in power production as a junior ultimately dropped him to the Reds’ pick in the third round. He’s an athletic center fielder who makes good swing decisions and will need to prove his offensive mettle against pro pitching after beating up on mediocre mid-major competition for three years. Don’t be surprised if, like Hope, Sirota has serious buzz in prospect circles a year from now.

Not to be forgotten, the draft pick — and even more crucially, the roughly $2.5 million in bonus pool money that accompanies it — will afford the Dodgers another opportunity to add talent to their farm system come July.

Have the Reds gotten closer to contention this offseason? Injuries certainly played a big role, but the Reds were one of the more disappointing teams of 2024, considering the way they seemed to be trending with a young team that came within a few games of a playoff spot in 2023. The decision to replace manager David Bell with a legendary skipper such as Francona suggested a degree of urgency to get the franchise back on track toward contention. Trading India to fortify the rotation with Brady Singer and retaining right-hander Nick Martinez via the qualifying offer were solid starts to the offseason, but things went fairly quiet in Cincinnati after that, outside of a trade with the Yankees to acquire backup catcher Jose Trevino.

Adding Lux gets Cincinnati’s lineup closer to what it projected to be with India still in the fold, and the starting staff looks to be in good shape. The outfield and bullpen, though, remain major questions, and it’s unclear how much flexibility the Reds have to address those areas before Opening Day. Even in a relatively weak NL Central, the Reds’ path to threatening for a postseason spot depends heavily on a combination of bounce-backs and steps forward from young players already on the roster. For a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 1995 (!), you’d like to see a roster with a bit more heft across the board. That said, Francona is universally regarded as one of the best managers around, and this team — if healthy — has enough talent in place for him to guide them into wild-card contention.

Is the Dodgers’ offseason complete? It has been a busy winter for the champs, and this latest sequence of transactions gives us a pretty good sense for what their Opening Day lineup will look like:

DH Shohei Ohtani

SS Mookie Betts

1B Freddie Freeman

RF Teoscar Hernandez

3B Max Muncy

C Will Smith

LF Michael Conforto

CF Tommy Edman

2B Hye-seong Kim

Not bad!

The rotation is much more difficult to project because of the number of pitchers involved and the various injury recovery timelines that will impact the order of operations. That said, it’s safe to say the Dodgers won’t prioritize adding to their rotation the rest of this winter, with the exception of their pursuit of Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. That leaves the bench and bullpen as areas of the roster still in need of some attention.

If there’s one thing this laughably star-studded position-player group lacks, it’s a lefty bat off the bench. Three right-handed hitters — veterans Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes, and Miguel Rojas — project as the Dodgers’ primary backups, with another in 24-year-old outfielder Andy Pages vying for at-bats as well. Perhaps top prospect Dalton Rushing, a lefty slugger, factors into the mix sooner rather than later, but the Dodgers could stand to add a more established option for that role.

As for the bullpen, the club retained Blake Treinen on a two-year deal, and they’ll have a full season of Michael Kopech in a high-leverage role after acquiring him from the White Sox at last season’s deadline. But with Brusdar Graterol expected to miss significant time in 2025 following shoulder surgery, there’s room for another backend arm to bolster this unit.

Fortunately for the Dodgers, the relief market has been unusually slow to develop this offseason, leaving them with a plethora of options to choose from in free agency.