SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The clubhouse buzz was impossible to ignore when Teoscar Hernández stopped mid-conversation, smiled, and delivered a line that may end up echoing all the way to Opening Day in Los Angeles: “He’s a really good player. He understands the game. He understands every situation.” The subject was Santiago Espinal, and the timing of the endorsement could not have been more dramatic, because four years after their breakout summer together in Toronto, Espinal is no longer an All-Star fixture but a long shot fighting to keep his major-league career alive with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In 2022 with the Toronto Blue Jays, Espinal was the ultimate glue guy on a 92-win playoff club, earning an All-Star nod as a do-everything, play-everywhere spark plug; today, he is a 31-year-old on a minor-league deal, staring down the harsh reality of three disappointing seasons and a minus-0.4 WAR since that magical campaign, per Fangraphs, a statistical cliff that forced him to accept a humbling winter reset in Chavez Ravine. “The Dodgers told me I’d have a great opportunity here to compete,” Espinal told The California Post this week, his tone calm but resolute.
“And as soon as I got here, they welcomed me with open arms.” On the surface, it sounds like standard spring-training optimism, yet inside the Dodgers’ complex the conversation has shifted from polite curiosity to genuine intrigue, because circumstances — and performance — are quietly aligning in Espinal’s favor. The defending champions are loaded with star power, but roster math is unforgiving, and injuries have already reshaped the equation: Kiké Hernández is expected to miss significant time while recovering from offseason elbow surgery, free-agent addition Andy Ibáñez was lost on waivers amid a 40-man roster crunch, and Tommy Edman’s absence for Opening Day has cracked the door open even wider.
Younger options like Hyeseong Kim and Alex Freeland are battling for infield reps, but the organization must weigh development against depth, and there is growing belief that only one of them may break camp in order to preserve regular at-bats in Triple-A for the other, a strategic choice that suddenly makes Espinal’s profile — veteran, versatile, unbothered by limited playing time — far more attractive than it looked on paper in February. Hernández sees the blueprint clearly. “I see him as a Kiké Hernández type of player,” he said. “He can play and contribute in a lot of ways.” Manager Dave Roberts has been equally pointed, hinting at Espinal’s rising stock with a comment that resonated throughout Camelback Ranch: “He’s really a helpful, winning player in my opinion, (who) raises the floor.”
For a club chasing another World Series, raising the floor can be just as critical as raising the ceiling, and Espinal has attacked camp with the urgency of a player who knows this may be his last, best shot. Every morning, he takes grounders on the main field alongside Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas and Freddie Freeman, not exiled to the back diamonds with other non-roster invitees but embedded with the regulars, absorbing details, studying routines, rebuilding confidence swing by swing. Dodgers hitting coaches have dissected video from his early-career success, urging him to rediscover the line-drive approach to the big part of the field that fueled a .280 average and 4.6 WAR from 2020 through his All-Star peak, and early Cactus League returns — a 4-for-9 start, highlighted by a hard-hit RBI single against the Giants — have provided tangible proof that the mechanical tweaks are translating under game lights. Espinal speaks with the humility of someone who has tasted both stardom and obscurity, pointing to Betts’ disciplined right-center approach as a revelation.
“In the cage, I never see Mookie pull the ball. It’s always right-center,” Espinal said. “That’s something that’s a very little detail, but to me it’s like, ‘Hey, let me try that, too.’” Yet the bat, while encouraging, is only half the story, because Espinal’s most bankable currency remains his glove: second base, third base, shortstop, even emergency outfield in a pinch, he offers coverage across the diamond, the kind of plug-and-play insurance contenders covet when October ambitions hinge on depth. The Dodgers do not need Espinal to be the 2022 All-Star version of himself; they need him to be reliable, prepared, professional, a steady presence who can enter in the sixth inning of a tight game without the heartbeat spiking.
In a spring already marked by roster twists and unexpected absences, that skill set has transformed Espinal from organizational filler into a legitimate dark-horse candidate for the final bench spot, and as camp barrels toward its final cuts, the question is no longer whether he belongs in big-league conversations but whether the Dodgers can afford to leave him behind. Four years ago, he was an All-Star on a playoff team; today, he is fighting for survival, armed with experience, adaptability and the ringing endorsement of teammates who have seen his best. If resilience counts for anything in March, Santiago Espinal’s comeback bid may be one of the most compelling stories in the desert — and perhaps, just perhaps, the quiet twist that shapes the Dodgers’ Opening Day roster.
