The Dodgers opted not to issue a qualifying offer to designated hitter J.D. Martinez and aren’t sure exactly when fellow free agent Clayton Kershaw will be cleared to pitch next season on the heels of shoulder surgery, but there’s some interest in keeping both players around for the 2024 campaign. President of baseball ops Andrew Friedman said at this week’s GM Meetings that his group is hopeful Kershaw continues pitching and spends the remainder of his career in a Dodgers uniform (via Jack Harris of the L.A. Times).
The lack of a qualifying offer for Martinez might’ve been a modest surprise at first glance, given his 33 home runs and .271/.321/.572 batting line on the season. A one-year deal at $20.325MM certainly seems justified for that level of production.
However, as we suggested in our Top 50 Free Agent list, the Dodgers surely didn’t want to risk the possibility of Martinez accepting a QO, given their widely expected pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. The former AL MVP will be limited to DH duties next year, so Martinez accepting would’ve been an unnecessary roadblock in those efforts. As a reminder, players that accept a QO are considered free agent signings and thus cannot be traded without their consent prior to June 15 of the following season; in other words, there was no straightforward scenario where Martinez accepted a QO and could then just be flipped elsewhere should the Dodgers emerge victorious in the Ohtani bidding.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweets that Ohtani’s presence on the market indeed influenced the Martinez QO decision, as one would logically expect. Friedman himself alluded to the very same yesterday, telling Harris that an eventual Martinez reunion is a possibility, but the Dodgers aren’t presently sure “which direction we’re going to go with our position player group” (a very likely nod to the uncertainty surrounding Ohtani’s still-nascent market).
While it’s certainly possible that Martinez might prefer to see where Ohtani lands before accepting an offer himself, that’s far from a given. There’s some logic to waiting to ensure that the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Rangers and other expected Ohtani suitors can join the bidding for Martinez’s services. But at the same time, if a team that knows it won’t be signing Ohtani swoops in with a strong offer for Martinez early in the offseason, he could also move quickly rather than run the risk of overplaying his hand. Earlier free agent deals tend to be stronger than those bartered late in the offseason, after all.
Turning to Kershaw, there’s still no indication as to when he might make a decision on his future. Friedman (via Harris) indicated that the Dodgers are “giving him the time and space to make the best decision” for his family. The Dodgers were similarly patient regarding Kershaw two offseasons ago, when he remained unsigned through the 99-day MLB lockout and took until March 13 to put pen to paper on a new deal. Last winter, when Kershaw was once again a free agent, things came together far more quickly; the two parties agreed to terms on a deal for the 2023 season as early as November 11.
Friedman said last month that the ball is squarely in Kershaw’s court, as the pitcher already knows the team’s feelings and knows the Dodgers are hopeful he’ll return. Those comments came prior to Kershaw’s surgery. The pitcher has since said he’s hopeful of returning to the mound sometime next summer.
Without Kershaw in the fold, the Los Angeles rotation mix currently includes Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, Emmet Sheehan, Michael Grove, Gavin Stone and Ryan Yarbrough. Righty Dustin May will miss the beginning of the 2024 campaign after undergoing flexor tendon surgery and a Tommy John revision in early July. Fellow right-hander Tony Gonsolin underwent Tommy John surgery in late August and could miss the entire ’24 campaign. The Dodgers figure to be in the market for multiple arms over the course of the offseason, whether that includes Kershaw or not.
