After welcoming a flurry of recent faces to the group this offseason, the Dodgers introduced again a way more acquainted determine on Sunday.
The group and Kiké Hernández have agreed on a one-year contract that can see the veteran utilityman re-sign with the membership for its World Sequence protection in 2025, in accordance with an individual with information of the state of affairs who was not licensed to talk publicly.
The Dodgers had certainly been leaving the door open to a reunion with Hernández this offseason, even amid their half-billion {dollars} of different signings in latest months.
And all alongside, the 33-year-old had his sights set on remaining with the group, having performed a key position of their run to a title in October.
In the course of the group’s fan fest occasion this month, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and normal supervisor Brandon Gomes mentioned the Dodgers had been nonetheless in talks with Hernández, at the same time as he reportedly fielded curiosity from different groups, together with the New York Yankees.
And now, not like when he left Los Angeles after the Dodgers’ 2020 title, he shall be again to attempt to assist the group change into MLB’s first repeat champion in a quarter-century.
Kiké Hernández speaks on the Dodgers’ World Sequence celebration at Dodger Stadium on November 1.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Occasions)
A longtime fan favourite courting again to his preliminary tenure with the Dodgers from 2015 to 2020, Hernández has authored a profitable second chapter at Chavez Ravine since being reacquired by the Dodgers on the 2023 commerce deadline.
That yr, Hernández hit .262 in 54 video games with the Dodgers, serving to him earn a one-year, $4-million contract for 2024.
Final season, Hernández began slowly, carrying a sub-.200 batting common into August. However midseason refinements to his swing, in addition to the invention of an eye fixed situation that prompted him to start sporting glasses, led to a robust closing stretch that carried into the postseason, when Hernández supplied a few of his most memorable moments in a Dodgers uniform.
In Sport 5 of the Nationwide League Division Sequence, Hernández hit one of many two solo house runs that lifted the Dodgers to a 2-0 win in opposition to the San Diego Padres. He adopted that with seven hits and 4 RBIs within the NL Championship Sequence, then 5 extra hits because the Dodgers knocked off the Yankees for his or her second title in 5 seasons.
“This guy always rises to the occasion,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned on the time of Hernández, a profession .278 hitter in playoff baseball. “The reason we got him this year was to win 11 games in October.”
Days after the group’s championship parade final fall, Hernández made it clear he hoped to get the possibility to do it once more.
“I really, really hope I’m back next year so we can run it back,” Hernández advised Dodgers followers at an occasion in November. “So make sure you guys talk to Friedman and those guys, and let them know.”
The message, evidently, was obtained, with Hernández’s return fulfilling one of many closing needs the fan base — and his Dodgers teammates — had for the group’s big-spending winter.
