Last January’s trade with the Cubs produced two of the Dodgers’ top four prospects this year, per BP. Josue De Paula and Dalton Rushing check in at second and third, respectively.
Baseball Prospectus on Monday unveiled its list of top Dodgers prospects heading into 2025. Outfielder Josue De Paula and catcher/outfielder Dalton Rushing each expectedly made the top three, but the top Dodgers prospect as tabbed by BP is outfielder Zyhir Hope.
The Dodgers got Hope last January from the Cubs for Michael Busch, for whom Los Angeles did not have a position, and reliever Yency Almonte. Pitcher Jackson Ferris also came in that trade, and he’s rated as the Dodgers’ fourth-best prospect according to Baseball Prospectus.
Hope hit .287/.415/.490 with a 144 wRC+, nine home runs, and 14 doubles in 54 games for Low-A Rancho Cucamonga last season. Just about his only setback was a shoulder injury from crashing into the centerfield wall on April 28 that sidelined him for three months.
“Despite missing a large chunk of the season with a shoulder injury, Hope floats to near the top of our national prospect list as he saw huge gains in both his in-zone contact and power on contact,” Jeffrey Paternostro wrote at Baseball Prospectus. “This is not a normal hit and power combination for a Day Three prep bat 18 months out from the draft. This would be good for a top-10 pick a year-and-a-half later.”
Hope turns 20 on January 19.
In their midseason prospect ranking update last July, Baseball Prospectus rated De Paula the 32nd-best prospect in baseball, and Rushing 50th. They check in at Nos. 2 and 3 on the Dodgers list, respectively, heading into 2025.
De Paula hit .268/.404/.405 split between Low-A Rancho Cucamonga and High-A Great Lakes, and at 19 years old was the youngest player on the Loons and one of the youngest in the Midwest League.
De Paula in 52 games with High-A had a 136 wRC+, his highest since moving to a full-season affiliate. It was a very on-base heavy line thanks to a 21.7-percent walk rate, hitting .254/.422/.356. He had a .102 isolated power with Great Lakes, similar to his .089 isolated power in first go-around with Rancho Cucamonga in 2023, which improved to .168 in 2024 before getting promoted in late June.
Rushing hit .271/.385/.512 with 26 home runs in 114 games between Double-A and Triple-A last season. In September he won a Branch Rickey Award as the Dodgers minor league player of the year.
His time in Oklahoma City saw him shift mostly to left field, adding another position to his tool belt with his major league call-up getting nearer and nearer. While learning a new position on the fly, Rushing held his own at the plate in Triple-A, hitting .273/.396/.511 with a 128 wRC+ and nine home runs in 37 games for Oklahoma City.
Rushing topped the Baseball America 2025 Dodgers top-prospect list back in November. BA has the same top five as Baseball Prospectus, just in a slightly different order. Shortstop Alex Freeland was second at BA, while he ranks fifth at BP. De Paula and Hope were third and fourth, respectively, at BA.