How Andy Pages injected much-needed youth -- and an MLB-leading batting average -- into the Dodgers lineup

Andy Pages

LAD • CF • #44

BA0.409

R10

HR5

RBI20

SB3

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Yes, Andy Pages. The Dodgers center fielder at this writing is tied with Jordan Walker of the St. Louis Cardinals for the MLB lead in WAR among position players. At this writing, Pages is slashing .409/.451/.697 (223 OPS+) with five home runs and a league-topping 27 hits in 18 games. That's sky-scraping production, and when you get it from a player who's also a plus fielder at the up-the-middle position of center field, it makes it all the more valuable. And, no, Pages isn't going to continue batting .409 over the larger sample, but the power is legitimate.

Power has been the foundation of Pages' promise, his carrying tool in the parlance of such things, since he was signed as a 17-year-old Cuban defector in the spring of 2018. He flashed big in-game power as an 18 year old in rookie ball. He was the Midwest League MVP in 2021 thanks to his 31-homer season at that rung, and then in 2022, as a 21 year old in Double-A, he hit 26 homers and 29 doubles in 131 games. A shoulder injury wiped out much of Pages' 2023 campaign, but by the middle of April 2024, he was in L.A. for good. Pages' rookie season was solid, as he put up a 100 OPS+ with 13 big-league homers in 116 games. He emerged as a core piece for the Dodgers last season, when he cracked 27 home runs with a 116 OPS+ and delivered as a defensive force in the outfield.

That latter merit -- Pages' defensive value -- was hard-won. He wasn't blessed with great speed, but he had excellent jumps and routes in the outfield. Prior to the 2023 season, however, Pages ramped up his nutrition and conditioning, dropped 25 pounds, improved his foot speed, and began to be thought of as more than a long-term presence at the outfield corners. All of that work manifested itself last season, when Pages, according to Statcast estimations, was in the upper tier of defensive center fielders (in an especially strong year for defensive center fielders). That trend has continued into the early weeks of the 2026 season. As hinted at above, the offensive bar is lower for those who man premium defensive positions and even lower for those who, like Pages, man a premium defensive position with aplomb. Given that and given how Pages is hitting thus far, it's little wonder he's been among the very best players in the game thus far in this, his age-25 campaign.

So back to the bat. The scouting profile, the developmental track record, and the underlying results all suggest Pages is going to continue being a major contributor. On the latter front -- the underlying results -- those batted-ball metrics add a layer of legitimacy and potential sustainability to Pages' performance thus far in 2026. Again, no, he's going to maintain an OPS+ in the 220s, but he does show the rudiments of an elite hitter. Consider:

• Pages right now has a hard-hit rate of 58.3%, which puts him in the 95th percentile among MLB hitters.
• Pages' barrel rate -- which is the percentage of batted balls that have the ideal combination of exit velocity and launch angle for power production -- of 10.4% is in the top third of MLB hitters.
• His average exit velocity of 92.6 mph off the bat is in the 82nd percentile among MLB hitters.

This is all reflected in his suite of expected statistics. Expected statistics reveal the numbers a hitter "deserves" based on his quality of contact. Right now, Pages has an expected batting average of .310, which puts him in the 94th percentile, and an expected slugging of .510, which puts him in the 85th percentile. Digging a little deeper, there's his expected wOBA, or xwOBA (what's this?). Pages' current mark of .376 lands him in the 83rd percentile of big-league batsmen.

So, yes, Pages is likely to come back to earth as the 2026 season continues to unfold, but there's a substructure of real, projectable offensive worth in place, and that will be there even when he's no longer batting above .400. The expectation is that Pages is going to continue putting up impressive power numbers while manning a deft center field, and that combination makes him the caliber of an All-Star. To nod again to the premise, he's still just 25, which means there may be room for further growth.

Maybe on another level, it would be a "cultural" victory of sorts for the Dodgers to have a homegrown talent as one of their core talents. To be sure, one means of talent acquisition is as legitimate as any other, but developing their own lineup star to go alongside Will Smith (we'll keep one eye on Dalton Rushing, of course) would be an enriching departure for the big-spending Dodgers.

That's less important than the notion that in Pages the Dodgers may have something they sorely need -- a "bridge" talent that not only provides big value in the present but also projects as a needle-mover for that future time when Betts, Freeman, and, let it be said, Ohtani may no longer be what they have been for so long. So, yes, all the numbers are still working for the Dodgers, and now those numbers include Pages, the 25-year-old emerging star.