Padres outfielder Matt Kemp has hired Reynolds Sports Management to represent him, according to announcements from both player and agency.
Kemp’s new representatives likely won’t have to negotiate a baseball deal for the slugger for some time. He is still playing under the eight-year, $160MM contract he signed with the Dodgers before the 2012 campaign. Kemp will earn $21.5MM anually over the next four years. (San Diego will receive $3.5MM annually from Los Angeles as part of the trade that brought him over last winter.)
That contract was negotiated by former agent and now-Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart, who obviously was forced to wrap up his services to players when he moved to the Arizona front office. He reportedly transferred the agency to teammate and friend Dave Henderson, but Henderson passed away unexpectedly late last year.
Kemp, 31, will be looking to improve his overall output in his second season with the Pads. He scuffled in the first half of the 2015 campaign but did finish strong, compiling a .286/.339/.528 slash with 15 home runs over his final 274 plate appearances.
It still amazes me that not only did the Dodgers get out from under most of that contract (and having to put up with Matt Kemp in the field), BUT also got value in return.
What were the Pads thinking? Were they thinking at all?
Although I do miss prime Kemp. Beast.
Padres thought they could contend last year, I honestly don’t think it was that bad of a trade on our part. Sure, kemps sabremetrics were bad but watching him every day he seemed like a great player. Not everyone can drive in 100 runs in a very inconsistent lineup.
It doesn’t take sabermetrics to see how terrible his defense is and it definitely weighs him down.
Instead of tracking the ball properly and taking good routes he always lets it fall in front of him and blocks it.
He’s really only suited as a DH.
What games are you watching? He’s bad, expensive($), and took talent to acquire. It was a miserable trade. That organization’s whole plan is questionable though.
Kemp really stunk last season. There is really no way to sugar coat it. RBI are not something that points out individual performance, it just means that you have people on base when you come up to bat.
Kemp hit .265 with only a .755 OPS on the season and only .270 with men on base, so he didn’t even hit particularly well then. Especially when you consider his contract size. His defense was the absolute worst in baseball in RF. Combined he was worth just slightly more than bringing up a replacement player from AAA. Just plain horrible.
Even his 2nd half was nothing to write home about. .286 with a 868 OPS. Good, but not $21.5 million good.
He hit .270 with runners in scoring position. Mistyped and you can’t edit on this new comment system. Thought I would clear that up.
I think an .868 OPS is worthy of that annual investment in this day and age, especially playing half your games in Petco Park. The defense, though, takes away a lot of value as you said. Padres should be crossing their fingers for the DH to come to the NL (not saying I’m a fan of that idea though).
Please stop parroting this ” replacement player” nonsense. If the Padres had someone at AAA that could’ve produced at a similar level as Kemp, they would’ve never traded for him. Why pay Kemp $21+ million when you could pay a rookie $600,000? There are a lot of flawed players in MLB thanks to over expansion. Kemp is flawed but still better than all AAA OFer’s and a lot of MLB OFer’s.
It doesn’t matter that they thought they could contend last year. This was still a bad trade. With as much as Kemp was making the Dodgers shouldn’t have gotten anything of value for him, let alone a catcher who made the All Star team. Preller should have never made this trade or at least made the Dodgers pay a LOT more money in the trade.
So what exactly will this representation do? Do they get paid a commission from his current salary? Are they just basically going to be sitting around for four years until Kemp needs them?
Field offers for endorsements, look over possible contractual changes due to a trade or other changes in his contractual situation, act as his media relations.
At a guess, I’d say they’d be handling things like appearances, endorsements, ongoing commitments etc for a fee.
I wonder why Preller chose Kemp to be his first big trade. It is well known throughout baseball that teams hate to trade within their own division. Yet, the Dodgers were willing to let go of one of their biggest bats to a rival. Plus, if I remember right his physical for the trade revealed arthritis in both hips. Warning sign after warning sign and Preller still wanted him. I wonder if the Tomas and Sandoval snubs lit a fire in him. Besides Kemp I think he went about last offseason pretty well. Myers might finally be healthy and he set the Padres up with some nice comp picks for Upton and Kennedy. 3 in the first 25 is fantastic for their farm. They are going to need that farm with $40m going out to Shields and Kemp the next couple of years. Unless, of course, Shields opts out but I don’t see it unless he has a monster year. He did beat DD in the Kimbrel deal but most GMs can say that too. DD just doesn’t seem to value prospects. Hopefully, when A-Rod hangs it up the Yankees will have some interest in Kemp’s bat for DH. The only other trade partner I can think of would be the Red Sox but they have Hanley for their next DH. It will be interesting to see if Preller is able to unload him and what he gets in return. Sorry about the kind of off topic rant. Too many cold ones tonight.
Let’s be serious everyone. When was the last time a Padres “prospect” turned out to be a MLB regular? The Padres scouting talent is garbage. They didn’t trade anything they will miss when they acquired Kemp last year.
Grandal by himself for Kemp was an absolute fleecing.
The Kemp deal looked terrible at the time, and it’s only 2016. Preller certainly made some interesting moves, but I just can’t fathom how you’d possibly think putting a small market club on the hook for all that on an aging and declining DH could ever have looked a good idea.
I guess teams hate trading within their own division because they don’t want to strengthen a rival, but when a trade will hobble them for years to come, I guess the opposite is true.
It was a strange trade at the outset, and sometimes I wonder if the ownership had more to do with getting a “name brand” player like Kemp more than Preller did.
Grandal was nice, but his bat did falter towards the end of the season last year. The other pieces they gave up weren’t anything spectacular. But overall, I agree that the trade still doesn’t really look to good for the Padres. However I wouldn’t say that it is a complete disaster yet.