Monday was a great day for the newlywed Kenley Jansen, whose five-year, $80 million contract with the Dodgers, and it was a great day for Justin Turner, who is closing in on a deal worth about $65 million with L.A. What this means is that the core of Dodgers who played into the National League Championship Series will mostly return intact.
But it wasn’t a good day for Yu Darvish, apparently, or Lorenzo Cain, or Seung Hwan Oh, or Alex Cobb or Danny Duffy or Tony Watson -- players who could represent some of the best of the free-agent class of 2017-2018 offseason. That's because according to sources, the Dodgers intend to adhere to the luxury-tax threshold of $197 million for the 2018 season. This would mean reducing their payroll by more than 20 percent, and unless they do some ninja accounting or dumping some contracts, it may well mean sitting out the conversations for the primary free agents.
After word leaked out about the Dodgers’ impending deals with Jansen and Turner on Monday, there was general astonishment in rival front offices, given the debt that L.A. is already carrying -- Bill Shaikin wrote about that here last month -- and given the staggering payroll and luxury tax the club will carry in 2017. Including the additional benefits extras of about $13 million that are tacked on to each club’s payroll for the sake of accounting, the Dodgers will be close to $250 million next season.
I asked one evaluator for a specific estimate of how much luxury tax the Dodgers will pay next season, and the response was blunt: “A ton!”
Today, Shaikin writes here about why the 2017 luxury tax bill is like tip money for the Dodgers.
But the Dodgers plan cost-cutting as draconian as a college freshmen going on the rice-only diet, apparently enabled by the wave of cheap, young talent coming through the L.A. system -- rookie of the year Corey Seager, pitchers Julio Urias, Jose De Leon and Yadier Alvarez (the best of the prospects from Cuba signed by the Dodgers), and first baseman Cody Bellinger, among others.
Even so, they will have to maintain spending discipline in all other parts of their roster. Assuming the Dodgers don’t pick up the option on outfielder Andre Ethier, the team’s commitments for 2018 are at about $190 million (including the cost of the benefits), with the threshold set for $197 million. Unless the Dodgers can somehow create wiggle room, by perhaps dumping the contracts of Scott Kazmir and/or Brandon McCarthy or others, they will operate with very little margin for more costs if they continue to regard the 2018 luxury-tax threshold as a hard cap.
The Dodgers are going bold, writes Doug Padilla.
The re-signing of Jansen and Turner means the Dodgers can continue to contend, writes Dylan Hernandez. The Dodgers’ reluctance to overpay for a closer was trumped by their need for a top closer, writes Bill Plunkett.
Mark Simon of ESPN Stats & Information sent along this note about Kenley Jansen’s cut fastball:
Jansen makes his living with his cutter. He’s thrown 1,583 of them over the last two seasons by our count, the second-most in baseball. You can make a good case that Jansen’s cutter is the best in baseball.
But it’s not the kind of cutter like the one Mariano Rivera throws. When you imagine a Rivera cutter, you think of one with sharp movement in to a left-handed hitter and away from a right-handed hitter. Recent free-agent signee Mark Melancon throws a cutter like that.
Jansen doesn’t. His cutter is more about velocity, and as the chart below shows, it gets both swings and misses and called strikes, even though the movement doesn’t mimic Rivera’s. His 75 percent strike rate with the pitch over the last 2 seasons is the best in MLB.
Big dollars have been spent on relievers this winter, as Sarah Langs writes:
With Jansen's deal, there have been $290.1M committed to relievers in free-agent deals this offseason.
That's the highest dollar total committed to free-agent relievers in a single offseason. The next-highest total was in 2010, but that offseason encompassed 44 free-agent relievers signing MLB deals (none to a deal worth more than Rafael Soriano's $35M one with the Yankees). This year's has 13 so far.
Padres' payroll paucity
Unless San Diego steps up and spends more on player salaries for next season, the Dodgers will spend more in luxury tax than the Padres will for their own players in 2017. This is illuminates what some on the union side regard as another gaffe by the Players Association in the recently completely CBA talks: a failure to ensure that teams will not cut salaries all the way to the bone as they tank (or rebuild, or whatever word you want to use).
The Cubs and Astros have demonstrated how this approach can work: teams can cut their payroll down to little more than the bare minimum, creating bank for club ownership. In doing this they reduce the competitive capability of their rosters and set themselves up to finish at or near the bottom of the standings -- and at or near the top of future drafts, with the attached draft dollars.
Under the new CBA, there will be some forthcoming adjustments to the slotting system and draft dollars that will theoretically reduce the rewards for finishing at the very bottom of the standings.
But more and more teams have recognized that the worst possible place to be is in the middle, creating races for the polar ends of the competitive spectrum. Under the current rules, and under the rules of the next CBA, the greatest rewards can be found at the very top or the very bottom.
The Phillies -- one of the sport’s most powerful franchises -- have just $2 million in payroll obligations for 2018, with the full expectation in the industry that Philadelphia will attempt to time a spending spree in concert with the maturation of its growing body of prospects.
The Padres will have to contribute to the salaries of Melvin Upton Jr., James Shields, Matt Kemp, Jedd Gyorko and others next season, but it appears they will pay more in salary to players not on the team than those who would help the team compete next summer. Other teams have worked the same way.
The primary financial victims of all this can be found in the union’s middle class. There are a bunch of veterans looking for work now, and the likes of Edwin Encarnacion or Jose Bautista or Mark Trumbo or Brandon Moss or Ivan Nova could make clubs like Philadelphia and San Diego more competitive next season.
But the Phillies and Padres may not spend much more than they already have as they position themselves for a sprint to the bottom.
The average salary for major league players has climbed dramatically over the last 15 years, through recent labor agreements. But the median salary actually declined last year, from $1.65 million to $1.58 million, as more and more teams bypassed the smaller deals in the $1 million to $4 million range with veterans and instead rounded out rosters with minimum-wage players.
Any solution to the tanking issue -- or rebuilding, or whatever word you want to use -- would be complicated. But some agents who felt shut out of the recent talks believe there was a greater chance this could have been borne out with a more protracted and inclusive negotiating process last summer.
No closer in the nation's capital
The Nationals still don’t have a closer, even after bidding big money on Aroldis Chapman and Jansen. The best options in the market, in no particular order:
1. Sign free agent Greg Holland, who has been in conversation with the Dodgers and other teams in recent days.
2. Trade for David Robertson, who has been made available by the White Sox. Robertson is owed $12 million for 2017 and $13 million for 2018.
3. Pursue Brad Ziegler, Santiago Casilla or some other free agent who has experience as a closer, to at least buy time for a solution to emerge. As mentioned here last week, the Giants’ staff saw no real diminishment in Casilla’s stuff, only in the results, which snowballed to the point where San Francisco had no choice but to make a change.
I’d guess that there are folks within the Marlins’ baseball operations department who are greatly relieved that they didn’t land either Chapman or Jansen, because a huge investment on a pitcher who contributes 60 to 70 innings in a season is a luxury item for a team with a moderate-sized payroll.
• The Marlins were unable to sign an elite closer, writes Tim Healey.
Moves, deals and decisions
1. The Cardinals signed some free agents.
2. The Pirates hired Gary Varsho as a scout.
3. The Phillies are inviting four players to spring training.
4. The Yankees signed Ruben Tejada.
5. The Braves signed John Danks.
6. Damon Berryhill will be the Braves’ Class AAA manager.
7. The Indians made a front-office hire, and promoted others.
8. The Brewers signed a minor league free agent.
9. The Orioles re-signed a reliever.
10. Dave Cameron compares the Dexter Fowler and Adam Eaton decisions.
AL West
• Danny Espinosa’s trade to the Angels is a homecoming.
• Jeff Sullivan assesses the addition of Espinosa here.
• If Alex Bregman plays in the WBC, it’ll be for the U.S.
AL Central
• The Tigers want to reduce the strikeouts of their hitters, writes Chris McCosky.
• Cleveland’s center field situation is complex.
AL East
• Pablo Sandoval has work to do with his teammates and the Red Sox fans, John Farrell said.
• The Orioles are unlikely to sign Welington Castillo, Dan Connolly writes.
• The Jays have opportunities to make a splash.
• The Red Sox will field a great outfield, writes Peter Abraham.
NL West
• The Padres faced competition for Tyson Ross, as Jeff Sanders writes.
NL Central
• The Cardinals’ strategy is not splashy, but it’s sensible, writes Jeff Gordon.
NL East
• Juan Lagares has a sprained shoulder.
Lastly
• The Rockies’ Chad Bettis has been battling cancer, but expects a full recovery by spring training.
• MLB’s Shannon Forde auction was a huge success, writes Tara Sullivan.
And today will be better than yesterday.