Dodgers reportedly signing OF Michael Conforto to 1-year, $17 million deal

The Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly have added a new outfielder to their roster.

The Dodgers struck a one-year, $17 million deal with Michael Conforto on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

Conforto spent the past two seasons with the San Francisco Giants, with whom he signed after missing the 2022 campaign due to a shoulder injury. In 2024, he logged a .237 batting average with 66 RBI and 20 home runs. It marked the healthiest season Conforto has had since 2019, other than a brief hamstring strain he sustained in May.

Conforto signed a two-year, $36 million deal with the Giants ahead of the 2023 campaign. The Giants went 80-82 last season and missed the playoffs for a third straight year.

Conforto will now join a Dodgers team fresh off their World Series run. The Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games in October to claim their eighth title and first since 2020. The team has made several significant offseason moves already, including signing pitcher Blake Snell to a $182 million deal and reaching a $74 million contract extension with utility man Tommy Edman.

Despite the fact that the Dodgers have already spent $256 million this offseason, the team is apparently nowhere close to finished. The team is reportedly still "in on" outfielder Teoscar Hernández, who became a free agent after his one-year deal with L.A. expired.

Regardless of what the Dodgers do in the coming weeks and months, they aren't afraid to spend. They're more than ready to go after a second consecutive World Series title next year.

What to make of Conforto's deal?

I was a big proponent of Conforto as an underrated free agent at the outset of the offseason, and seeing him land with a team that sure seems to know what it's doing is certainly validating.

It was understandably overlooked within the context of such a forgettable Giants campaign, but Conforto quietly improved in 2024. He raked away from San Francisco, hit left-handers better than he ever has and improved his hard-hit and barrel rates to career-high marks. But because his poor home numbers dragged his overall line down to a mediocre-looking .759 OPS, Conforto appeared to occupy a lower tier of free-agent bats available than the likes of Teoscar Hernandez, Anthony Santander or even Tyler O’Neill.

But with this one-year pact to become a Dodger, we might very well be looking at a promising sequel to the smashing success that was the one-year deal Hernandez signed with L.A. a year ago. Hernandez, too, hit the open market having struggled immensely in his home park in Seattle and was looking for a more favorable landing spot to reestablish his value. It couldn’t have gone much better for Hernandez, and now he could cash in significantly this winter. Conforto has the opportunity to follow a similar path after struggling to produce at a high level in San Francisco, and he appears primed to play a key supporting role beyond the superstars atop the Dodgers lineup.

On that note, Conforto’s signing raises the question of whether a reunion with Hernandez is still in the cards for Los Angeles, or if one of the beloved heroes of the World Series champions might soon head elsewhere for a far larger deal than what Conforto received. With Mookie Betts reportedly moving back to the infield, the other corner outfield spot remains unsettled in L.A., so it’s not impossible to imagine Hernandez still returning. But the Dodgers might also feel more comfortable maintaining the flexibility with that last outfield spot, rather than making a multi-year commitment to Hernandez as he enters his mid-30s. Hernandez’s market appears to be heating up considerably following Juan Soto’s megadeal with the Mets, so we’ll likely have a better sense of the Dodgers’ outfield direction beyond Conforto in the near future. — Shusterman