Inside The Dodgers

Dodgers Lose Free Agent Outfielder To Mets

J.P. Hoornstra|
Oklahoma City Comets outfielder Jose Ramos (18) slides home to score a run during a minor league baseball game between the Oklahoma City Comets and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City on July 9.
Oklahoma City Comets outfielder Jose Ramos (18) slides home to score a run during a minor league baseball game between the Oklahoma City Comets and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City on July 9. | BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Los Angeles DodgersNew York Mets

The Dodgers lost free agent outfielder Jose Ramos to the New York Mets on Tuesday when the 24-year-old from Panama signed a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Ramos patiently climbed the Dodgers' minor league ladder over the last six years, making his Triple-A debut with Oklahoma City in July.

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Ramos finished the 2025 campaign on a tear. Over his final 16 games with the Dodgers' top farm team, he slashed .339/.371/.695.

Overall, Ramos hit eight home runs, drove in 27 runs, and scored 29 in 44 games with the Comets.

Now he'll take his talents to Queens, where the Mets are down an outfielder after trading veteran Brandon Nimmo to the Texas Rangers for second baseman Marcus Semien.

A minor league contract means Ramos still could be a long way from patrolling a major league outfield. For now, at least, he's in line to get a longer look from the Mets next spring than he got with the Dodgers.

From 2022-25, Ramos appeared in 23 spring training games with the Dodgers, going 13-for-28 (.286) with one home run and five RBIs.

In 2024, FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen ranked Ramos as the No. 33 prospect in the Dodgers' organization, ahead of two relief pitchers (Sauryn Lao and Ben Casparius) who have since reached the big leagues. MLB Pipeline ranked Ramos at No. 29.

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For all his eye-popping exit velocities, strikeouts have long been Ramos' biggest obstacle to success. He struck out in his only plate appearance of the 2025 Cactus League season.

Ramos reduced his strikeout rate to 30.5 percent at Oklahoma City after whiffing at a 34 percent clip at Double-A Tulsa in 2024. The strikeout rate across all of Major League Baseball was 22.2 percent in 2025, so Ramos will likely need to show improvement in that regard before he joins a 40-man roster.

With the ability to hit tape-measure home runs to all fields, Ramos will at least give Mets fans an entertaining player to watch in spring training — if not a bona fide prospect.

Ramos was perhaps a candidate to compete for playing time in left field with the Dodgers in 2026, but the team cleared up its assessment of its internal options when outfielder Ryan Ward joined the 40-man roster on Nov. 6 instead of Ramos.

Ward, who is three years older than Ramos, hit 36 home runs and slashed .290/.380/.557 in 143 games at Oklahoma City in 2025.

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J.P. Hoornstra
J.P. HOORNSTRA

J.P. Hoornstra is an On SI Contributor. A veteran of 20 years of sports coverage for daily newspapers in California, J.P. covered MLB, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Los Angeles Angels (occasionally of Anaheim) from 2012-23 for the Southern California News Group. His first book, The 50 Greatest Dodgers Games of All-Time, published in 2015. In 2016, he won an Associated Press Sports Editors award for breaking news coverage. He once recorded a keyboard solo on the same album as two of the original Doors.

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