Today, the Dodgers and Braves made a trade that would have been enormous news five years ago:
The Los Angeles Dodgers today acquired outfielder Matt Kemp from the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Adrián González, Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, Charlie Culberson and cash considerations.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) December 16, 2017
That’s a complicated trade, but my view looks something like this: the Braves are taking on more total money to “buy” Charlie Culberson and maybe get some productivity from Brandon McCarthy. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are getting Kemp’s $20 million AAV contract and giving up a TON in 2018 dollars so they cut their payroll (for luxury tax purposes) by a huge amount. This move may very well get them under the luxury tax limit for 2018. Then they’ll be able to go hog wild in the next free agent class with their penalty reset.
The Dodgers, by the way, were already paying some of Kemp’s salary from the original trade to the Padres, so this thing is going to get really complicated financially. But the short version remains: this is a great news for the Dodgers if they were planning on spending big next offseason.
As of this moment, I’m kinda hating the Braves. I get it from there perspective. But I’m kinda hating them.