Even the world champs have an offseason wish list.
The Dodgers might be back-to-back World Series winners, but they still have multiple needs to address before they start their quest for a three-peat in 2026.
Here are three goals for the rest of L.A.'s offseason.
1) Add an impact outfielder
The Dodgers are one of the teams in most need of an outfield upgrade going into 2026. They have Teoscar Hernández, who's been great in L.A., but after that the situation gets murkier.
Tommy Edman is versatile enough to be a valuable player in the outfield when healthy, but his ankle issues limited his ability to play there for most of the 2025 playoffs. Andy Pages is talented enough to be a difference-maker on offense and defense, but his hot-and-cold streaks are dramatic and he took a lot of uncompetitive at-bats in the postseason. Alex Call didn't play a whole lot down the stretch after his trade from the Nationals. And Michael Conforto struggled all year, was left off the postseason rosters and is now a free agent.
All that means adding an impact outfielder via free agency or trade should be one of the Dodgers' top goals for Opening Day 2026.
Kyle Tucker is the marquee free-agent option -- the 28-year-old is a four-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger who has an .878 OPS and has averaged 33 home runs per 162 games over the last five seasons. If Tucker commands a longer-term deal than the Dodgers are looking for, given that the team's top prospects are outfielders who could be ready by 2027, there are other interesting names.
Maybe a reunion with Cody Bellinger is their best bet? The Dodgers' former MVP has had a resurgent few seasons since leaving L.A., including 29 home runs and an .813 OPS this year with the Yankees.
The Dodgers are reportedly interested in both Tucker and Bellinger. But those two certainly won't be the only outfielders they get linked to this winter.
2) Rebuild the bullpen
This is also a big one. The Dodgers' bullpen was one of their biggest strengths on their 2024 title run. But it was one of their biggest weaknesses in 2025. Los Angeles scraped by in the playoffs thanks to a historically dominant starting rotation -- and by using those starters as relievers.
Roki Sasaki took over as L.A.'s primary playoff closer, but he's going back to the starting rotation in 2026. And just look at how the Dodgers covered the biggest innings of the season in Game 7 of the World Series, when they turned to Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and finally Yoshinobu Yamamoto in relief.
So the 2026 Dodger bullpen will have to look a whole lot different. This team needs a closer, particularly after Tanner Scott's rocky season, and probably more fresh arms on top of that considering the high volatility of the relief corps in 2025.
Luckily, there are plenty of late-inning options out there in free agency, chief among them Edwin Díaz -- the Dodgers are generally considered one of the best fits for the three-time All-Star closer -- but also big arms like Robert Suarez and Pete Fairbanks and bounceback candidates like Devin Williams and Ryan Helsley. The Dodgers will have their elite starters again next season, but they'll need to target some of these relievers to build a bullpen like they had in 2024.
3) Inject some youth into the lineup
The Dodgers have a star-studded lineup. But they also had the oldest lineup of any team in 2025, with an average batter age of 30.7 years according to Baseball Reference's calculations, which are weighted for each hitter's games played and at-bats.
The Phillies (30.3 years) were the only other team with an average batter age over 30, and the average batter age for an MLB team was 27.9 years.
Essentially all the key hitters in Los Angeles are in their 30s, including Freddie Freeman (36), Max Muncy (35), Mookie Betts (33), Hernández (33), Shohei Ohtani (31), Will Smith (30) and Edman (30). That's not really a worry, per se -- it's not like these are aging stars who are long past their prime. But the Dodgers still might want to inject a young bat or two into the mix.
MLB is full of young stars these days, and that's one thing the Dodgers don't really have, at least on offense.
Now, it's not like those players grow on trees, especially in free agency, where Tucker, Bo Bichette and Munetaka Murakami are three of the only big-name hitters still in their 20s. So if the Dodgers want to get younger -- in a way other than bringing up their own top prospects to the big leagues -- they might have to go out and trade for someone.
That could help set them up for World Series contention again in 2026, and also beyond.
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