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The Dodgers have officially placed Will Smith on the injured list with a neck injury, per MLB.com. This move had been anticipated for days — Smith had missed four consecutive games with lingering neck stiffness — but it’s now official, and the timing couldn’t be worse with the club already thin on catching depth.

Smith has been one of the most productive catchers in baseball since establishing himself as the Dodgers’ everyday backstop in 2021. A switch-hitter with legitimate pop from both sides of the plate, he’s been a fixture in the middle of this lineup for years. His combination of offensive production and solid receiving work has made him one of the more valuable catchers in the National League. Neck stiffness is the kind of injury that can linger, especially for a catcher who spends every game in a crouch, absorbing foul tips and torquing his body on throws. The fact that it kept him out four straight games before the IL stint tells you this isn’t something minor that just needed a day off.

The bigger concern here is what the Dodgers do behind the plate while he’s out. We were already operating without a ton of catching depth, and losing Smith forces the front office to get creative. Catchers aren’t easy to find mid-season — at least not ones who can contribute meaningfully on both sides of the ball. The internal options will need to step up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew Friedman’s group starts making some calls to see what’s available externally, even if it’s just a stopgap.

This is the kind of move that ripples through the entire roster. Smith isn’t just a catcher — he’s a middle-of-the-order bat who provides real thump at a position where offense is hard to find. Losing that production, even for the minimum 10-day IL stint, puts more pressure on the rest of the lineup to pick up the slack. And if the neck issue drags on longer than the minimum stay (and soft tissue stuff like this often does), we’re looking at a meaningful stretch without one of our most important players.

For now, we wait and see how long this actually takes. The Dodgers clearly tried to avoid the IL by giving Smith multiple days off, and it didn’t resolve. That’s not a great sign for a quick return. I’ll be watching the corresponding roster move closely to see who gets the call to fill the catching spot — that decision will tell us a lot about how the front office views the timeline on this.

Source(s): Staff (MLB.com) | First reported: June 11, 2026 3:29 AM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers