Why you should be scared of the Dodgers in 2019 and beyond
Now that baseball is over, and the Dodgers fell one game short of winning the World Series, it's time for some CONTRACTS talk.
The Dodgers have been maligned by haters in recent years who have claimed the team has had success because of its monster payroll. More keen observers point out that much of that payroll was dead money -- either paid to players who are gone, or ones who were contributing little. Much of the team's success was thanks to the lower and middle salaried players.
Dodgers already have some money freed up this year, but offseason FOLLOWING 2018 will be the big one.
For the 2018 season, the following large/medium salaries will be paid, barring any trades:
Clayton Kershaw $35.6 million
Adrian Gonzalez $22.36 million
Kenley Jansen $10.8 million
Justin Turner $12 million
Brandon McCarthy $11.5 million
Scott Kazmir $17.67 million
Rich Hill $16.67 million
Yaseil Puig $9.21 million
Logan Forsythe $8.5 million
Hyun-Jin Ryu $7.83 million
Erisbel Arruebarrena $6.5 million
In arbitration, Grandal is expected to get about $7.7 million, and Alex Wood is expected to receive around $6.4 million.
As you can see, some of that money is well spent (Kershaw, Tuner, Jansen, Puig), some of it is a waste (McCarthy, Kazmir, Ryu, Gonzalez, Arruebarrena), and some of it is in the middle (Hill, Forsythe).
But what about a year later? Coming into 2019, of that group above, ONLY Turner, Puig, Hill, and Jansen are locked up! (And it will be Hill's final year.)
The rest will be free agents, except Kershaw who is signed through 2020 but can opt out after 2018.
This will free up a lot of money.
What about cheap players who will become free agents and need to be paid a lot to be kept?
Not many. There will be two free agents the Dodgers would want to consider keeping after 2018: Grandal and Forsythe. And if Barnes continues hitting the ball, the Dodgers might decide to part with Grandal -- if not before that.
So the Dodgers are going to shed a lot of obligations while not having to pay existing players much more.
There will, of course, be the matter of Kershaw. No doubt he will opt out. No doubt he will want a "reset" of his contract, to where he's guaranteed far past 2020. And it's very likely he will get it.
Kenley Jansen and Justin Turner will also see raises of about $7-8 million in 2019 over 2018.
Still, there will be a lot of money to be spent.
And most of the dead money will be gone. There will be a final Matt Kemp payment of $3.5 million in 2018, a few years left of the $5-7 million payments to Yasiel Sierra, and that's pretty much it.
The Dodgers only have $107.5 million committed for 2019 right now, and that includes Kershaw's big contract. The scary part? Despite all that extra money to spend, almost the entire Dodgers playoff roster can be kept in 2019 for not much more than that $107.5 million.
Hopefully the Dodgers will use the found money wisely, and not waste it this time on failpitchers like Kazmir and McCarthy.
Source: https://www.baseball-reference.com/t...ontracts.shtml
