GAME THREAD DODGERS HOME OPENER/DIAMONDBACKS: Back to the minors

Yeah. It sucks walking through the Dodger parking lot after a win and hearing two Chick Giant fans yell out "3 in 5! 1988 was like a hundred years ago!". Sobering reality. Hopefully this drought ends soon.

 

And how did the Dodgers win those titles in the '70s and '80s? By developing their own guys, not by going in big on FAs, which it seems like a lot of the older folks want them to do. Strange really.

 

No matter what the motivation was behind the Adrian trade, the bottomline remains that they committed to over $250 million in salary for what basically equated to Gonzalez + broken pieces. The equivalent of this in a FA deal would be a $30+ million a year contract for a guy who's an elite player, but by no means an unquestioned top-3 talent in MLB. FA or not, the Dodgers made Clayton Kershaw the highest paid pitcher in MLB history in both annual salary and total contract. The Dodgers continue to have the largest payroll in MLB and it's not really close. The Dodgers paid over $40 million in luxury tax last season, which is more than any single player made. If the Dodgers can dip below the luxury tax threshold for one year, that alone could save $120 million over the next 5 years. But I digress...

The Dodgers have shown they will pay for players. Just because we see top free agents sign elsewhere doesn't mean the Dodgers haven't paid for anyone, there are 29 other teams in the league so of course we will see a lot more players sign with other teams than with our own. The Dodgers also have a lot of guaranteed money coming off the books after 2017 and 2018, plus maybe less luxury tax owed if they can squeeze under the threshold for one of those seasons.

IMO, not paying borderline elite players when they already have the highest payroll in the majors with a huge luxury tax hit, does not lead to the conclusion they will never pay a generational elite player if they put themselves in a position of greater financial flexibility.

That said, Harper grew up a Yankees fan. But is from Dodgers territory. It will be interesting to watch.

 

Free Agency didn't exist until the mid-late 70's. You had to develop your own guys to succeed in the 70's and 80's.

 

Yeah and LAD has chased after young generational talents when those opportunities have presented themselves recently, but the reality is that these targets have been under contract with teams, so their hands have been tied in that they aren't going to be some misc. team's bitch in trade discussions and blow up the farm/help opponents rebuild.
For example, LAD's interest in trading for Jose Fernandez back in December.
From a youth/talent/impact standpoint, of the targeted guys linked to LAD, Fernandez is really the only legit comparison to Harper in this entire discussion thus far.
Like Harper, Fernandez is turning free agent after 2018 @ 26 years old, and so a monster payday is coming.
Point being, no one's trading a haul for Fernandez right now, or even having interest in him, without processing the shiny, new contract he's going to need in 2 or 3 years.
He's great, but of course the numbers still have to be ran down the line and earmarked when you're talking compensation going both ways, and I think we can all safely assume that a bunch of Wall St. nerds have indeed covered every base available in regards to a potential investment in the player.
We're probably talking about 40MM+ per season at that point for Fernandez, at the age of 26 he probably gets something like a 7 or 8yr deal with player options sprinkled in and is a decent bet to set the bar for top tier pitchers on the open market at that point ( so long as he remains healthy enough).
Now, do we think LAD would trade for Fernandez and then cheap out and let him leave at @ age 26?
Before anyone answers or blurts out " Greinke! " again they need remember that, for the 101st time said here, Fernandez and Greinke are not on equal footing in this scenario.
By comparison Greinke is old, so Fernandez is more of a younger Kershaw right now and in this scenario.
So yeah that'd pretty much be an impending commitment.

Anyway, like you said there the Bryce Harper/Jose Fernandez/Mike Trout/Clayton Kershaw/Buster Posey/Felix Hernandez/Giancarlo Stanton types, the kind of young talents you don't mind handing a long term deal to because not only are they box office studs and very marketable, but they produce like Hall of Famers in waiting...these young players rarely get to the open market.
And so of course Fernandez wasn't a FA last winter when LAD had interest in making him their #2 behind CK, nor was Stanton a FA when he signed his contract with Miami before last season.
However, we know that both Harper and Fernandez will likely make it to FA because they're represented by Boras, and so there's a rare opportunity for a lot of teams ( not just LAD) in a few years.
Older fellas ( and inferior players) Cespedes/Heyward/Greinke/Hamels/Price do not compare favorably to that Harper/Trout/Kershaw/Fernandez/Posey/King Felix/Stanton group of young talent, so I have no idea where some are trying to go there.
I like Jason Heyward, most everybody likes Jason Heyward, but Jason Heyward is notches below Harper and he's not box office or nearly as marketable.
Heyward's good and he's steady, but he's not moving team merchandise like Harper is, he's not creating interest in the sport in general like Harper is, he's not arguably the face of MLB like Harper is, and MLB isn't constantly buzzing over Jason Heyward like they are with Harper.
So yeah, just because the nerds weren't inclined to send a large amount of capital along with Ethier and CC to get them moved out ( or possibly deal Puig/Joc) to open up an OF spot for Jason Heyward, doesn't mean that in 3yrs they'll pass on going after Harper with a bunch of old bums off their books and tons more payroll flexibility.
I think the former gets overlooked.

irish posted a quote from Zaidi a while back where he said plainly that LAD would be willing to move notable prospects, it's just that they're not going to be reckless with their approach there, and so it has to be the right player coming back and that's really it.
It's gotta make sense and as fans we have to know that it's about more than just winning for them, it's also about what that player can do for them financially because shocker...it's a business too.
So we really can assume the same in regards to the kinds of top tier guys they push for in FA, just gonna have to be the right top tier guy to get them to open up.
Fernandez's availability made their ears perk up, that was a good enough sample regarding their mindset.
So at the end of the day the guy may not be Harper ( I actually predict he'll stay in DC), but LAD will pounce on a headliner at some point, as we've both mentioned more than likely it'll be after they've cleared AGon/Ethier/CC/McCarthy/Kazmir/etc. off their books in a few.
And if their Fernandez chase wasn't a good enough indicator, their 300MM offer to CK shows how serious they are about controlling young, marketable, Hall of Fame level talents.
What did they offer Greinke? 160MM?
As great a year as he had, the FO pretty much put Greinke in his place with that offer, not that it was a slap in the face caliber offer or that is wasn't reasonable, but they basically looked him up and down and said " 200MM? Old fella, you're no CK. We don't like you that much. Adios. Catch you on the flippity flip. "

 

At the moment both Fernandez and Harper are scheduled to hit free agency in 2019, at the same time the Dodgers have a huge amount coming off the books. The Dodgers are currently committed to only $55 million in 2019 - now granted, that money only pays for 3 players (plus 2 players with deferred money), so there will be a lot of arbitration and free agent figures to add into that, but there are a lot of directions the team can go at this point. I think it would be pretty telling if the Dodgers actually dip below the luxury tax threshold in 2018 (which should be around $200 million).

 

Yeah, right now the average payroll is around 140MM, and by 2018 it'll probably around 150MM, maybe a little more.
With just 55MM committed to that year they can throw a guesstimated 100MM or whatever on top of that to round out the rest of a young roster and be around the league average with a lot of flexibility before reaching that 200MM lux tax threshold.
Boehly actually said they want to be at the league average plus a little or plus a lot, so he even left the door open to going past that point.
So perhaps just enough room to add a 40-50MM AAV guy and still avoid the tax.

Like you said earlier, Harper's a Yankee fan from LAD territory, so that'll be interesting.
And of course Kasten is one of the guys instrumental in bringing Harper to DC in the 1st place, so that adds intrigue.
Will they land him?
No one can answer that right now.
I know this...LAD's young talent is superior to the Yankees' and of course there's also more coming up through LAD's top ranked pipeline.
So I imagine, barring catastrophic injury to our impact guys, or our current crop of big league youngsters failing miserably, that will be LAD>>>NYY come 2019 and maybe that could give LAD an edge for Harper?
And just the culture of doing it their way with the facial hair, etc., NYY is a weird fit for Harper when you step outside of just the natural reaction to hearing the 2 mentioned together.

NYY is a Trout type of place, IMO, Trout could step right in and be that Jeter-like unassuming superstar for them and he's from Jersey, so it's somewhat Trout territory.
Mentioning Trout because there's been talk of him ending up with NYY as well with his deal up after 2020 when he'll be 29yrs old.
LAD's team culture is pretty loose, LAD would be Harper's type of place IMO, but I guess we'll see.
Right now, and it's super-early and a guess, but fuck it...I'd say 1A - Nats, 1B - LAD, 1c - NYY.
Tons could change over the course of 3 yrs tho, including Harper's own level of play.

 

So then, take my bet.

 

Knew someone would counter with this. Point remains the same, they didn't make a bunch of trades either.

 

Honestly, we just don't know enough behind the scenes to find the answer to these questions. I agree that there should be a balance, but we just have no idea what's going on.

 

What bet?

 

I'll bet a six pack Harper never wears Dodger Blue as a FA.

That one, scroll back.

 

So some beer bet based on 2019 free agency...but made in 2016?
Lol That was a good one.
Scroll back yourself, I have the Nats as the favorites to keep Harper.

 

Don't have to scroll back, I can remember shit. Like how you have the Dodgers as 2nd favs to sign him.

 

double post

 

I don't know, seems like you got lost somewhere along the line.
Being that I have the Nats as the favorites to sign him, what do I get out of betting against my own feeling here?

 

Looks like to me you have it as a dead heat, no 1,2,3,...but 1a,1b,1c.

Right now, and it's super-early and a guess, but fuck it...I'd say 1A - Nats, 1B - LAD, 1c - NYY.

 

I don't know how it looks like a dead heat when I don't have them all on equal footing.
1A, 1B, 1C does not mean " tie "

 

Fucking whatever.