Ryan Ward Acquired By NPB’s Chunichi Dragons

The Dodgers announced that the contract of first baseman/outfielder Ryan Ward has been sold to the Chunichi Dragons of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Ward had been designated for assignment last week. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic was among those to relay today’s update. Ward, 28, has been a huge power threat throughout his minor league career but hasn’t been given much chance to prove himself in the majors. That is perhaps because he is something of a late bloomer. An eighth-round pick from 2019, he didn’t make it to Triple-A until his age-25 season and his first go at that level wasn’t too impressive. He did hit 21 home runs in 2023 but his .234/.324/.424 line actually led to an 83 wRC+ in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He took things up a notch from there, hitting 33 home runs for Oklahoma City in 2024 and 36 last year. Despite that big power output, he found it hard to get playing time with the Dodgers. They have Shohei Ohtani at designated hitter and Freddie Freeman at first base. Teoscar Hernández and Mookie Betts were in the outfield corners as of a few years ago. When Betts moved to the infield, Michael Conforto and then Kyle Tucker have replaced him. This year, Ward’s numbers have slipped a bit and the Dodgers system is now overloaded with outfield prospects. Ward got 60 plate appearances in the majors and put up a decent .218/.283/.455 line but his .249/.349/.430 Triple-A line has been league average in the Pacific Coast League. When Ohtani recently hit the injured list, the Dodgers promoted prospect Josue De Paula straight from Double-A. He has been great through his first ten games. Prospect Mike Sirota was recently bumped from Double-A to Triple-A. Eduardo Quintero finished this year at the Double-A level. Those guys are younger than Ward and have more of a chance of a long-term future with the Dodgers, which led to Ward losing his roster spot. His next opportunity will now come overseas. The Dragons are 59-2-77, fourth in the Central division. The top three teams make the playoffs and the Dragons are well back of the third-place Yokohama BayStars, who have a record of 67-3-66. Presumably, the Dragons are acquiring Ward with an eye towards the 2027 season. For Ward, it gives him a chance to prove himself on a bigger stage and likely with a better paycheck than he would make with another season in Triple-A. He still has two option years remaining and may have been destined to spend a lot of time on the farm even if he were claimed off waivers by another MLB club. If he has success in Japan, he could try to come back to the majors at some point in the future or just parlay that success into staying in NPB with a bigger contract. Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images View Comments (17)