Wednesday, October 21, 2026

Copyrighted by Sarah Morris, 2026

Since early August, due to an elbow injury, Dalton Rushing hasn’t been able to catch. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Dodgers revealed he will undergo Tommy John surgery with an internal brace to fix a torn UCL. The Dodgers expect him to miss nine months.

The catching situation is dire for the Dodgers. Although they have Will Smith under contract for another eight years, he is 31 and missed three months with an undisclosed neck injury.

Unlike most years from the 1950s to 2000s, the Dodger organization doesn’t have an abundance of major-league catchers. In August, when Rushing went on the IL, Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes scrambled to find catchers to acquire. Luckily, Rushing’s injury occurred on the day before the major-league trading deadline.

A catcher is the most important defensive player on the field. He is involved with every defensive play. He must be tough because he takes physical punishment from squatting half the game behind the plate, taking foul balls of the body, getting hit by long, aggressive back swings, and blocking balls in the dirt. He needs to be part psychologist to work with pitchers, a temperamental group at best. Management wants a catcher to frame borderline pitches to convince the home plate umpire they are strikes. With the invention of ABS, the team wants a catcher to decide which pitches need to be challenged.

While a catcher is crucial for the success of the pitching staff, teams want their catchers to produce offensively. Teams expect their catchers to provide power after Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza showed what was possible. With all the physical abuse that they take behind the plate, catchers must give their teams something.

When Smith went on June 6 with the neck injury, Rushing became the Dodgers’ primary catcher. He experienced many growing pains, physically and emotionally, on the major-league level. His play and frustrated emotional outbursts after his offensive failures hurt the Dodgers. Since he is a Dodger, every emotional outburst was made into a meme.

Before Rushing was promoted in 2024, the organization bragged about his offensive prowess. Having a left-handed hitting catcher is a rarity. Mike Scioscia, who was the Dodgers’ catcher for thirteen years, was the last left-handed hitting catcher in the organization before Rushing. Rushing hasn’t shown that offensive production on the major-league level. In 80 games, Rushing had a .246 batting average, 12 home runs, 36 RBI, .788 OPS, and 1.3 WAR.

Although Dave Roberts praised Rushing for not taking struggles behind the plate, Rushing’s defense and handling of pitching staff need improvement. He showed improvement in 59 games behind the plate, but his dWAR still was -0.1. Frequently, his pitchers disagreed with him. In June, Shohei Ohtani, who is usually very professional, argued with Rushing both on the mound and in the dugout before deciding to call his own game. A catcher’s job is to suggest what a pitcher should throw. His cERA was 3.86.

In addition to his pitch-calling problems, Rushing struggled with passed balls. He had 7 passed balls. All Dodgers’ catchers couldn’t prevent wild pitches. His pitch framing needs improvement, but he was the best at challenging pitches on the Dodgers’ catching staff.

Rushing had trouble in throwing out potential base stealers with 25%, but his pitching staff had slow deliveries to the plate, not giving him much of a chance. He made one error.

Major elbow surgery with an internal brace procedure will delay Rushing’s development into a satisfactory major league catcher. The Dodgers must have a satisfactory backup catcher for Smith while Rushing recuperates. Hunter Feduccia isn’t the answer with a -0.1 WAR and a 0.1 dWAR. The Dodgers need to increase their organizational catching depth, particularly with Smith getting older.