Dodgers designate Austin Barnes for assignment, promote Dalton Rushing
LOS ANGELES -- Dalton Rushing got a call from his Triple-A manager, Scott Hennessey, at 1 a.m. Wednesday and feared the worst. He was told, instead, that the Los Angeles Dodgers were calling him up to the big leagues.
"I got straight to packing," Rushing, the organization's top prospect, said from Dodger Stadium later that afternoon. "It was a quick turnaround."
The Dodgers have long been comfortable with veteran Austin Barnes as their backup catcher, but Barnes continued to struggle offensively and Rushing continued to develop quickly. His performance with the Oklahoma City Comets this season -- a .308/.424/.514 slash line and 11 extra-base hits in 31 games -- essentially forced the Dodgers' hand, prompting them to promote Rushing and designate Barnes for assignment.
The Dodgers now have seven days to either trade or release Barnes, who was in his 11th year with the team and had been part of a multitude of signature moments.
Rushing, the 16th-highest-rated prospect in the industry by ESPN's Kiley McDaniel, will relieve starting catcher Will Smith a couple times a week and be available as a left-handed pinch-hitter.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described this as "an opportunity to challenge" Rushing, who will also use this time to get more familiar with the team's pitchers.
"The bat has always played," Roberts said of Rushing, who is expected to get his first start behind the plate Thursday. "That's always been his carrying tool. The receiving has gotten much better. The arm strength is there, the relationship with the pitchers has continued to grow. And all the reports that we've got on the Triple-A side, just improvement all around. And so with the maturity that he has, the performance, we just felt that it was a right time. Unfortunately we've got to move on from a player that's such a professional like Austin Barnes."
Barnes, 35, was just 9-for-42 with 14 strikeouts and one walk this season. His pop time -- the time between when a pitch touches his glove and reaches a middle infielder on an attempted steal -- was the worst in the majors.
But Barnes' biggest contributions have often been behind the scenes. Along the way, he has also made meaningful impacts on the field -- most notably in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, when he recorded the sixth-inning hit that got a cruising Blake Snell out of the game, igniting a comeback, then caught the final out from Julio Urias.
"He's a glue guy," Roberts said. "He held guys accountable. He was tough. I mean, he had a very innate ability to get big hits, and he was respected across the board. And so when you lose a presence like that, there's always kind of, you know, pause, I guess. But when we bring in a talent like Dalton, and the way he's performed -- we feel good about the culture we have already in place. But how Austin's impacted our pitching staff, that's going to continue to go on."
There is no direct path to consistent playing time for Rushing at the moment. Smith has established himself as one of the game's best catchers and is signed through 2033.
Designated hitter, meanwhile, is taken up solely by Shohei Ohtani.
Rushing accumulated 305 minor league innings at first base since being drafted in the second round out of Louisville in 2022, but that position is manned by Freddie Freeman, one of baseball's hottest hitters this month.
Rushing's best path to playing time on the Dodgers appears to be left field, but he logged only two games there this year and Roberts said he doesn't foresee him playing there in the majors this season. That position might open up next year, when Michael Conforto reaches free agency. But until then, Rushing, one of the sport's brightest prospects, will mostly sit.
"I'm the rookie," Rushing said. "I'm the young guy. That's my job. And essentially, if I show up here every day and I play three days a week -- if I can help the team win those other three, four days, it's pretty special and it's pretty valuable."
