Ohtani heads to IL; Dodgers calling up top prospect De Paula, sources say
Josue De Paula, one of baseball's best outfield prospects, is being called up by the Los Angeles Dodgers, sources told ESPN on Wednesday night.
In a related move, the team is placing two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani on the 15-day injured list, manager Dave Roberts said after a 14-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
The plan is for De Paula to join the Dodgers on Friday for the start of a seven-game road trip through Miami and Cincinnati, according to sources. He was rated the 10th-best prospect in ESPN insider Kiley McDaniel'supdated top 100 MLB prospect rankings.
De Paula's call-up comes as Ohtani has missed six of the past seven games with soreness in his right arm while also dealing with discomfort in his left knee. De Paula will likely get a small runway to accumulate at-bats at DH while Ohtani rests up for the stretch run before the playoffs.
De Paula, 21, has been tearing it up in Double-A this season, slashing .302/.400/.539 with 26 home runs and 31 stolen bases in 123 games.
The Dodgers, winners of six straight games heading into Wednesday, are also without center fielder Andy Pages, who is recovering from a fracture in his left hand. First baseman Freddie Freeman, meanwhile, is nursing right knee soreness that prompted him to DH on Tuesday and kept him out of the lineup on Wednesday, though Roberts doesn't expect him to go on the IL.
Signed out of the Dominican Republic for slightly less than $400,000 in 2022, De Paula breezed past the Dominican Summer League, High-A and Single-A in his first four years in the organization, ultimately becoming the Dodgers' consensus top prospects. The Dodgers refused to include him in trade talks for Tarik Skubal this summer, seeing him as an impact player in their lineup in the near future.
And though he is in Double-A, evaluators believe his bat is major league ready right now.br/]
