This week’s complicated three-way trade looks like a great move for the Dodgers, a mixed bag for the Braves, and another deal for the Marlins which appears to be financially motivated, Keith Law of ESPN.com (Insider sub. req’d) writes. The Dodgers badly needed another starter given the injuries in their rotation and lack of organizational depth and Law believes that Mat Latos is probably worth two extra wins to L.A. the rest of the way. Here’s more out of L.A.
- The Dodgers are paying $85.75MM for eight players no longer with the organization, writes Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. Hector Olivera‘s $28MM signing bonus is the biggest expenditure on the list. Matt Kemp ($18MM) and Dan Haren ($10MM) round out of the eight figure commitments.
- In a second piece, Shaikin wonders whether the Dodgers even have a financial limit. GM Farhan Zaidi says yes, then goes on to elaborate that “nobody has ever mentioned a number to us.” The Dodgers are projected to pay a record $43MM in luxury taxes this season. It’s possible that number could increase in August. Zaidi did allude to a time when the Dodgers will field a more typical payroll with the help of cost controlled talent.
- Also from Shaikin, the Dodgers are currently paying for 25 percent of the Marlins payroll. The players’ union has taken fresh notice of Miami’s penchant to deal talent for financial relief.
- The Dodgers looked into White Sox starter Jeff Samardzija “some time ago,” tweets Shaikin. Talks did not progress. After a brutal start to the season, the Pale Hose are just two games below .500 and 3.5 games behind the second Wild Card. Undoubtedly, the surging roster affected their willingness to sell Samardzija.
The Dodger’s minor league system looks like an all-star game I saw a few years back. Just saying, they HAVE enough starters.
dodgers max payroll= 1billion lol
how is being able to afford a billion dollars funny?
There is a limit, and it is time. It will be how long they stick with Mattingly as manager. The clock is already ticking.
do you like Mattingly?
It’s hard to whine about a first place team and I love the trade, but this team still has to hit in the clutch. We are 10th in NL in RBI’s w/RISP, the Giants are first. Remember we have 14 losses where Kershaw and Greinke gave up 3 runs or less. It doesn’t matter who is pitching until Puig, Peterson, and Rollins start hitting.
Once the young guys come up and guys like Crawford contract expires the Dodgers payroll should be a lot less
Just out of guys that will be free agents after this year (Greinke, Rollins, Anderson, Kendrick, League, and Peralta) the Dodgers will be saving about 65 million and combine the guys that are being paid for on other teams just for this year (Gordon, Haren, Kemp [Dodgers go from paying the Padres 18 mil to 3.5 starting next year] Wilson) is savings of around 36 million. Still going to be a high payroll after they attempt to resign Greinke, maybe another starter, and possibly Kendrick, but over 100 million will be coming off the payroll this offseason
Per BF LAD guaranteed 2016 payroll $170.8M…Est w/Arb, options etc $225.3M. If they sign Price or Cueto youb are looking at $255M and that doesn’t count the other 7 holes needed to fill the 25 man.
The take-away from this article is the Dodgers’ ownership is not half as concerned with payroll as many fans seem to be. They haven’t set a spending limit for their FO, yet that doesn’t stop a lot of people from trying to figure out what their limit is anyway. Puzzling.
All this fretting about the Dodgers’ payroll is kind of missing the point. The point is, the people who own and run the Dodgers aren’t fretting about payroll. They are using their massive financial clout to build a win-now and win-tommorow team in a way we’ve never really seen before. For anyone who doesn’t believe it, Zaidi’s comment “nobody has ever mentioned a number to us” should be a real eye-opener. Now if somebody wants to complain about how the revenue model in baseball gives the large-market teams unfair leverage over the small-market teams, then that’s something to talk about. Not that anyone does want to talk about it.
The Dodgers payroll is insane. I tally $362.0 million in total spending this season.
Top-6 contracts = 130.5M. All (15) contracts paying 6M+ (this season) = 213.3M. And five of those 15 contracts are for players NOT playing for LAD (Kemp, Haren, League, Wilson, and Uribe). $324.7M in actual paid + $37.3M in CBT tax/penalty.
And your point? They’ve got the money and they are spending it for on-field product.
Check out their future financial commitments (or lack of) – then their plan might start making some sense.
It actually makes sense with or without considering future financial commitments. It only fails to make sense to people who can’t look past a cost-benefit analysis.
The Dodgers are simply cleaning up the McCourt mess the same way
Microsoft wrote off Nokia – the Dodgers have so much talent with position players making minimal salaries (Turner,Peterson, Guerrero, Seager, Grandel) they can load up on pitchers for years to come.
One more trade that can be made is a little unorthodox but could help both teams is between the Braves and Dodgers. The Dodgers have DFA’d Chris Heisey, Tim Fererowicz, Brandon Beachy and Chin Tsao so they have no use for them. Their combined financial commitment is $6.9. The braves have Chris Johnson who can be traded for the four DFA’d players. If the Dodgers have no use for Johnson (They still have Callaspo) they can DFA him and lose nothing. The Braves with less total tallent than the Dodgers may find some use for the four players and if not it will be easier to designate them with less financial commitment. To make the money even, the Dodgers pay the Brave $919,600 this year or the equivalent value in international bonus money, then the Braves pay the cost of Johnson in 2016 and 2017 to the Dodgers.
Federowicz was traded to the Padres in the Kemp for Grandal deal.
I just think it was a bad idea for the White Sox to not trade Shark and any other you may have gotten something back for at this point. I base this attitude on how many times I have seen the Sox completely choke in the 2nd half; especially with Robin led teams.
While anything is possible and the Sox could make an improbable run to the playoffs and then run through and win a WS, Im guessing it is more likely they barely make the playoffs and if so likely get knocked out by a better team in which case was that REALLY worth not trading Shark and getting some decent players back for a guy you could try to resign in the off season? Alexei may have also warranted at least a prospect or two with the way he was coming around, same with Danks. I’m not saying you would have gotten a lot but it definitely clears some payroll and get something back if you can unload those guys.
The Dodgers mode of operation is strikingly similar to the subprime loan crisis.
@nrd I was in the same thought process as you going into the deadline but the idea to trade to simply trade isn’t too smart. While the team has only enjoyed recent success the message it would send to the team as well as fans after winning like that in July and having guys like melky, Sanchez, and eaton come around points towards success. Yes, they may get bounced if they make the playoffs but so can every team. They’re better on history rather than the first 2 months. Ride it out and see what you get!
What ever happened to Brian Wilson, did no one want to pick him up so he retired?