NEWSLETTER
Last night, as rumors were swirling like crazy, an enormous Braves/Marlins/Dodgers trade was circulated, though the particulars were hard to pin down due to the scale of the trade and volume of players involved. In total, thirteen (!) players, the Marlins’ 2016 competitive-balance draft pick, and a whole lot of money was swapped between the three teams.
This deal is so complicated and includes so many different pieces (players, money, draft picks), that frankly, I am impressed that it was able to be completed. Tasked with relaying the final details to you, it was not going to be easy to piece together all of the details in a concise, digestible manner. Luckily, Jeff Passan did it for us in a series of concise, useful tweets.
The details of the trade
Dodgers receive LHP Alex Wood, RHP Mat Latos, OF/1B Michael Morse, RHP Bronson Arroyo, LHP Luis Avilan, RHP Jim Johnson and UT Jose Peraza.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 30, 2015
Braves receive IF Hector Olivera, LHP Paco Rodriguez, RHP Zack Bird and the Marlins' 2016 competitive-balance draft pick, likely in the 20s.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 30, 2015
Marlins receive Jeff Brigham, Victor Araujo, Kevin Guzman and the salary relief from dealing Latos and Morse.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 30, 2015
The teams all just announced the deal on Twitter, too.
And a little bit of added perspective…
Between the ~$30M in signing bonus savings and Dodgers taking on Arroyo deal, Braves gave up Wood/Peraza to get Olivera for 5 years, ~$22M.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 30, 2015
To be honest, there is far too much going on here to offer much of a “take” on things right now. In short, the Dodgers are really leveraging their financial muscle to land a lot of good players, some bad players and some hurt players that will help out now and in the future. But don’t get me wrong, they got a ton of talent back. Alex Wood, for example, is a 24 year old starting pitcher who had a 2.78 ERA (3.25 FIP) over 171.2 IP last year, for the Braves, who has already accumulated 2.0 WAR over his 119.1 IP this year. The Dodgers also got the Braves overall top prospect, Jose Peraza, a 21 year old middle infielder at AAA – #30 overall in MLB.
Heading to the Braves is Cuban “star” Hector Olivera, who was just signed this past offseason to a huge $62.5M deal. Because of the structure of the deal, as Passan notes, the Braves will only have to pay roughly $22M of that sum [Brett: shaking my bucket-wearing head at the Dodger$$$]. The Marlins are getting three low-level pitchers in exchange for the salary relief created from ridding themselves of Michael Morse and Mat Latos.
The key take away from this, is the Dodgers’ continued use of endless sums of money in increasingly creative and infuriating ways. If we thought the late 90s/early 2000s Yankees or the 2011-2014 Dodgers were leveraging money in seemingly unfair ways, wait until we get used to an Andrew Friedman led Dodgers organization with an unlimited purse. I already hate it.
For more on the deal, check out the articles here, here and here.
