DODGERS NEWS/RUMORS/AROUND MLB Thread

was thinking the same thing
especially about the scouting
a lot of question marks, have to presume the FO nerds know more than we do

 

just listened to keith law's evaluation [fwiw]
says olivera projected to hit for average and power
said his arm is better suited as a 2B man
and that seager is our future 3B man
so

 

Reactions To Hector Olivera Signing
By Jeff Todd [March 24, 2015 at 11:41pm CDT]

Earlier today, Cuban free agent infielder Hector Olivera reportedly struck a six-year, $62.5MM agreement with the Dodgers. A late entrant onto the free agent market, Olivera ultimately landed the ninth-largest guarantee of the offseason.

Here are some reactions to the signing:

• The Dodgers’ move for Olivera was set in motion, in part, by other international happenings, says Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com (links to Twitter). After losing righty Yoan Lopez to the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers elected not to incur future spending restrictions by going after Yoan Moncada. The club then turned its focus to inking Olivera and Pablo Hernandez, neither of whom was subject to spending caps. But that leaves Los Angeles positioned as the “team to beat” for pitchers Yadier Alvarez and Vladimir Gutierrez in the next signing period, says Gammons.

• Olivera represents a move that prioritizes roster flexibility, writes Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, but also demonstrates that the Dodgers will seek to marry advanced analysis with budgetary muscle. It remains to be seen how things will play out, of course, but Passan says that the rest of the league is on notice: the Dodgers are intent upon a long-term strategy as both the smartest and the richest organization in the game.

• Dave Cameron of Fangraphs voices a similar sentiment, positing that Olivera is unlikely to offer much of an upgrade to the club for 2015, if he does at all. Instead, the club was able to plunk down a large amount of cash in order to prepare for 2016 and beyond.

• The club’s long-term plans for Olivera are not dependent upon whether top prospect Corey Seager can stick at the shortstop position in the long run, tweets Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. Olivera is believed to be capable of playing at second, third, or first, making him a flexible option depending upon where Seager ends up. The club currently employs pending free agents up the middle and at the hot corner, so figures to have plenty of options in charting a course after seeing how things progress in 2015.

• Los Angeles primarily sees Olivera as a third baseman, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. To some extent, the club was buying at that position early given its evaluation of next year’s free agent class at third, says Sherman.

• Of course, it remains to be seen what that means for incumbent Juan Uribe and the rest of the infield mix for the present season. While Uribe could conceivably move to a utility role, such a move would have implications for fellow infielders Justin Turner, Alex Guerrero, and Enrique Hernandez (and, in turn, the team’s already-full slate of outfielders). Needless to say, the Dodgers figure to remain busy over the coming months and beyond.

 

totally agree
i trust chris' judgement way more than law's
i think ibb is right about law being stubborn

 

great analysis by passan...

Why getting a nearly 30-year-old with a possible arm injury makes sense for Dodgers
by Jeff Passan | Yahoo Sports — 14 hours ago



Five months into the Andrew Friedman regime, it’s becoming clearer and clearer how his Los Angeles Dodgers are going to operate. They covet roster flexibility. They prioritize growing high-end talent internally. They’re in the midst of assembling a think tank of behind-the-scenes people to investigate every little area in which they can improve. And when it won’t have a deleterious effect on the aforementioned areas, they will flex their Venice-quality financial muscle.

The former three make the latter so very scary to the other 29 teams in baseball, which have seen the New York Yankees spend, spend, spend their way to middling results because they hemmed themselves in with an aging and inflexible core, biffed on the farm and never built the analytics warehouse a team with such financial resources warrants. It’s why Tuesday, even as the Dodgers gave more years and dollars to Cuban infielder Hector Olivera than any other team was willing, it was difficult to fault them with profligacy.

The $62.5 million Olivera is set to receive didn’t blow away the next-best offer like Los Angeles’ $42 million for Yasiel Puig did. The six years were one more than others were willing to offer. And the $28 million signing bonus – well, that was them doing their best Ronnie Coleman impersonation. The deal, first reported by MLB.com, is pending a physical, which should warrant close consideration.

Concern percolated about the health of Olivera’s right elbow, and while scrapping the deal at this stage is unlikely, the contract includes a rare provision: If Olivera needs Tommy John surgery at any point in the deal, the Dodgers get to tack on a seventh year for just $1 million, sources told Yahoo Sports. It is similar to the clause in Cardinals starter John Lackey’s contract that has him playing for the major league minimum this season because his ulnar collateral ligament failed and warranted surgery. Though the throwing arm is far less important for hitters than pitchers, the health of Olivera’s elbow loomed over negotiations with all teams.

Never in doubt was Olivera’s bat, the sort of right-handed presence the Dodgers could use in a lineup larded with left-handed hitters. Olivera, 30 in April, impressed scouts at showcases and figures to slot himself somewhere near the top of the Dodgers’ lineup once he arrives. When that will be remains unclear. Olivera still needs a visa and some in-game fine-tuning, considering he has logged all of 273 plate appearances since 2011. A reported blood clot in his non-throwing arm kept him out in 2012, and his defection wiped out 2014.

In the short-term, Olivera looks like depth for the Dodgers. How soon he slots in at third base, his likely position, depends on his performance as well as incumbent Juan Uribe’s. Olivera could fill in at second base, too, though third is his likeliest landing spot, particularly with the paucity of free-agent third basemen this offseason.

The Dodgers faced an offseason with three empty infield positions with the pending free agency of Uribe, shortstop Jimmy Rollins and second baseman Howie Kendrick. Olivera’s signing more or less guarantees the Dodgers will stick with 6-foot-4, 220-pound prospect Corey Seager at shortstop for at least a few years, and whether they decide to lock up Kendrick, deal for a second baseman or plug super-utilityman Kike Hernandez into the slot, they’ve got options, which is all the Dodgers ever want.

Trading Dee Gordon and Dan Haren for Hernandez and catcher/second baseman/third baseman Austin Barnes highlighted this desire for elasticity among hitters. In the era of 12-man pitching staffs, a five-player bench in the National League runs far deeper with players who can double switch to multiple positions. Another player who fit that standard: Cuban teenager Yoan Moncada, who signed with the Red Sox for a $63 million outlay.

The Dodgers’ ultimate lack of involvement with Moncada speaks to other parts of their strategy. Had they signed Moncada, the Dodgers would have been shut out of the forthcoming international signing class, which is expected to include Cuban right-hander Yadier Alvarez, a Moncada-level talent. The ability to get Alvarez, and any other under-23 Cuban, with the knowledge that whatever penalties are levied likely will be moot with an international draft targeted for 2017, is the sort of maneuver that defines these Dodgers: think like a small-market team, spend like a big-market behemoth.

It’s why they didn’t trade Joc Pederson, who’s going to win their center field job, why they wouldn’t listen on Seager or 18-year-old Julio Urias, the best left-handed pitching prospect in the minors, why they’re thrilled with the revelation that was first-round pick Grant Holmes. The Dodgers don’t want to be the Yankees, with a development pipeline that stagnated for a decade. They’re building an R&D department combining the finest ideas of the Rays (Friedman) and A’s (general manager Farhan Zaidi) with the sort of unparalleled financial backing an $8 billion TV contract allows.

It’s why the $8 million they gave Cuban pitcher Pablo Fernandez, widely panned as an overpay by other teams, amounts to a rounding error for the Dodgers. The money allows them to take risks other teams can’t, creates a playing field that is far from the level of Bud Selig’s Utopia. Other teams might have liked Olivera more than the Dodgers, but no team liked him enough to scare them off.

Tuesday reminded everyone just how formidable a force the Dodgers really are. Olivera is theirs, warts and all, for a hefty price but nothing compared to what top-end MLB free agents get on the open market. So it goes with the Dodgers: always searching for a slight advantage, a tiny crack into which they can slide themselves and leverage just a little more value, the richest kid on the block who also happens to be the smartest.​

 

swing kinda looks a bit like a young a-rod