Veteran slugger Teoscar Hernández has agreed to a three-year pact worth $66 million to reunite with the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to CBS Sports HQ’s Jim Bowden. ESPN’s Jeff Passan adds that the contract includes an option for a fourth year (valued at $15 million), as well as a $23 million signing bonus and $23 million in deferrals.
Hernández also spent the 2024 season with the Dodgers. In 154 games for L.A., Hernández slashed .272/.339/.501 (137 OPS+) with 33 home runs and 32 doubles. For his efforts, he earned an All-Star selection for the second time in his career. Hernández’s 4.3 WAR for the season was a career-best mark, and he won the Silver Slugger for the third time in his career.
Hernández will join an outfield depth chart that includes fellow free-agent signing Michael Conforto, as well as Tommy Edman, Andy Pages, James Outman, and Chris Taylor, among others.
Coming into the offseason, CBS Sports ranked Hernández, who’s now 32 years of age, as the No. 17 free agent of the 2024-25 class. Here’s part of our write-up:
Modern front offices talk a big game about paying only for the future, not the past. That preference creates some weird situations. Take Hernández. He just had a good season, his fourth in five tries, yet it’s unclear what will matter more to teams: that he provided more evidence that he’s an above-average bat, or that he’s a year older than he was last winter, his first foray into free agency. You can hope for the former, but we suspect some teams will dock him for the latter. Ever the same, Hernández’s ability to impact the baseball helps atone for his strikeout tendencies and his defensive deficiencies.
For his career, Hernández has an OPS+ of 121 and a WAR of 17.1 across parts of nine major-league seasons. He’ll enter the 2025 campaign with 192 home runs to his credit.
