Greinke to Dodgers 6yr/147M

[Rudi]

Dodgers will have 4 players making over 20M a year.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were closing in Saturday on signing the top free-agent pitcher on the market, Zack Greinke, a source told ESPN.

The deal is worth approximately $147 million over six years, a source told ESPN.

The contract will pay Greinke more than the $144 million extension Cole Hamels signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in July, and will be the largest ever for a right-handed pitcher.

In total dollars, Greinke's new deal would be the second most lucrative in history for a pitcher, trailing only the original $161 million deal signed by CC Sabathia in 2009. The Dodgers had been widely viewed as the favorite to sign the 29-year-old Greinke, a one-time Cy Young Award winner, until recent days, when the Texas Rangers emerged as an equally strong suitor for the right-hander.

In fact, as recently as Thursday, on the final day of the winter meetings, Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti appeared greatly discouraged by the course his team's negotiations with Greinke and his agent, Casey Close, had taken.

Asked if he was on the "doorstep" of acquiring Greinke, Colletti replied: "We're not on the front lawn. ... We're barely out of the car at the curb. It's better than driving around the neighborhood looking for the house. We know where the house is located. We just can't seem to get out of the car."

The Rangers have been informed they are out of the running for Greinke, a source told ESPN.

Greinke compiled a 15-5 record with a 3.48 ERA and 200 strikeouts in a 2012 season he split between the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Angels.

The Dodgers prioritized starting pitching shortly after the season ended, with the intention of finding a No. 2 and, maybe, a No. 3 starting pitcher to slot behind ace Clayton Kershaw.

The team viewed Greinke as clearly the best pitcher on the market, with Anibal Sanchez a distant second. In recent days, the Dodgers had grown discouraged by what they viewed as an astronomical asking price on Greinke, but apparently his representatives lowered their sights in the past 36 hours.

The team has a 5 p.m. ET Sunday deadline to come to terms with left-hander Ryu Hyun-jin or he would return to pitch in his native South Korea and the Dodgers would be refunded their $25.7 million posting fee. If the Dodgers can reach a deal with Ryu's agent, Scott Boras, their offseason work would be all but complete.

Depending what happens with Ryu and a couple of recovering pitchers, the Dodgers now could be in position to deal a couple of veteran starting pitchers, with Chris Capuano and Aaron Harang the most likely names to be moved. The team isn't sure whether Chad Billingsley and Ted Lilly, both of whom are recovering from arm injuries, will rejoin its rotation next season.

Los Angeles took on more than $300 million in salary obligations in a series of trades last July and August that brought Hanley Ramirez from the Miami Marlins and Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett from the Boston Red Sox, among others.

The driving force for all their spending is a massive TV deal the team is in the process of negotiating. The Dodgers are in discussions with at least two media companies about a new package that could bring them somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion over the next 25 years, according to reports.

SOURCE: ESPNLA

 

[Woy]

So he's not going back to Milwaukee, is he Gob? :dd:

 

[Chrispy]

Pretty good article about the contract and the Dodgers

Up and up and up it goes. Higher than a bird. Higher than a plane. Higher than the International Space Station. Possibly even higher than Charlie Sheen.
No, not the national debt. We're talking about the payroll of those Los Angeles Dodgers, obviously.

Unless something unforeseen happens, the Dodgers are about to make Zack Greinke the highest-paid right-handed pitcher in the history of right-handedness, and the second-highest-paid pitcher of all time, behind only the still-left-handed CC Sabathia.

And what does that mean? Only the Dodgers' accountants know for sure. But here is the mathematical portion of this equation, as best we can compute it:

• Zack Greinke is about to earn approximately $147 million through 2018.
• Adrian Gonzalez is owed $127 million through 2018.
• Carl Crawford is due $102.5 million through 2017.
• Matt Kemp has $108 million coming through 2019.
• Andre Ethier is owed $85 million through 2017.

Whew. Got that?

That comes to more than a half-billion dollars (about $569.5 million, in case your hard drive just blew up before it computed it). For five players. Five.
And guess what? They're not done.

Since winning the AL Cy Young Award in 2009, Zack Greinke is 41-25 (.621) with a 3.83 ERA.

Next up, the Dodgers plan -- or at least hope -- to sign yet another free-agent starter, with high-ticket items like Anibal Sanchez and Korean left-hander Ryu Hyun-jin at the top of the current shopping list. It's a good bet that whichever guy they sign, he'll be making slightly more money than Stephen Fife.
But hang on. After that, they still won't be done.

For their next trick, they can turn their checkbook's attention to making sure their very own homegrown Cy Young, Clayton Kershaw, gets his chunk of the Guggenheim Baseball Partners fortune. He's now only two years away from free agency. So pencil him in for another 150 million bucks or so.

And that means that when his deal is done, the Dodgers figure to be pushing three-quarters of a billiondollars owed to just seven players. Seven.
Wow. Is there someplace we can apply to be adopted by the Guggenheim folks?

So by the time the Kershaw contract hits the books, the Dodgers will be paying five different players more than $20 million a year. Even the Yankees "only" have three. How can that be?

Meanwhile, depending on how the Greinke contract is structured, the Dodgers' payroll for 2013 figures to be somewhere between $210 million and $220 million. And that, too, would boggle even the Steinbrenner family's minds.

The all-time record for any team's Opening Day payroll is $209 million, held by the 2008 Yankees. At this point, the chances of that record still standing, come April, appear to be right up there with the chances of Snooki joining the case of "Downton Abbey."

Then again, said one baseball official last week as we were contemplating the heights to which this team's payroll might ascend, "wait till you see the TV deal."
Oh. Right. Thanks for reminding us. Last we checked in on the Dodgers' TV negotiations, they were negotiating a package with Fox that was said to be worth between $6 billion and $7 billion over the next 25 years.

When we crunched those numbers on our calculator app, it told us that would average out to at least $240 million in TV rights fees per year. Yep. We said per year. And no matter how you break that down, it comes to a lot of Dodger Dogs.

And a lot of Dodgers superstars.

So remember that, okay?, as this team's payroll continues to soar into the stratosphere -- and whatever "pheres" are beyond that. (The luxury-tax-os-phere?)
Remember that because it's a reminder of something important: The only reason the Dodgers are spending all this dough is because they've got it -- and because they've got a lot more of it coming.

These aren't Frank McCourt's Dodgers anymore. Or the O'Malley family's Dodgers. Or any federal bankruptcy court's Dodgers. This is now one of the all-time sports behemoths. And apparently, it plans to flex its behemoth-ness whenever the time -- and the latest available free-agent icon -- is right.

As Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said in a piece we wrote on this team last month: "Everything is totally different now. Now we can think bold thoughts. Now we can do bold things. .…
"Obviously," Colletti went on, "we've got to be wise with our choices. We can't be reckless. But now we're encouraged to think big, to think global -- if we see a toothpick, to think redwood tree."

Well, we think they just spotted another redwood, sprouting in the Chavez Ravine Forest.
And its name is Zack Greinke.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove12/story/_/id/8727653/zack-greinke-free-spending-los-angeles-dodgers

 

[JimLeavy59]

:lol:

 

[Yawkey Way]

Does Ned Colletti now have the easiest job in the MLB? Oh, what's that? Player X is an all-star? Here's a blank check.

Teams who spend outrageous amounts of money are the worst. Just impossible to compete with them. They're going to load up with high priced superstars and be a force for years to come. A true shame, I would hate to support a team which simply buys success.

:dd:

 

[Woy]

Dodgers should sign Kyle Lohse so the Cardinals can get a first round pick.

...because you know, building through the draft is how you construct a World Series team. :lesmug:

 

[JimLeavy59]

Hasn't baseball always been about buying all the talent though?

 

[Garrett67]

Didn't the Dodgers just get themselves out of a financial mess (or bailed out)?

 

[Goober]

Does Ned Colletti now have the easiest job in the MLB? Oh, what's that? Player X is an all-star? Here's a blank check.

Teams who spend outrageous amounts of money are the worst. Just impossible to compete with them. They're going to load up with high priced superstars and be a force for years to come. A true shame, I would hate to support a team which simply buys success.

:dd:

I would hate to be a fan of a team who tries to buy success, but fails miserably. That's just me though.

 

[Glenbino]

Welp another big name trade for the Angels turns out to net us nothing in return. Kudos to Zack for cashing in.

No one spends money as fast as they get it like Ned Colletti and that rotation is pretty damn loaded.

Still that payroll is already huge and I still don't think they're better than the Giants. Maybe this gives them a shot at one of the two wild card spots.

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[EmpireWF]

Does it matter how a team wins? I wouldn't care if it was with big fa's, developing prospects or a mix of both.

Nobody is guaranteed to be there at the end after over 170 games.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

Greinke is pretty damn good, but he's not worth this much, even for a team with bottomless pockets like the Dodgers. It sets a bad precedent for years to come, but hey, most MLB contracts do that year after year. Kershaw and Greinke will be one heck of a duo at the top of the rotation though.

One other thing to point out, is that this should open the floodgates for most of the guys left at the top of the FA pile, and should bring a final resolution to the Upton trade situation as well.

 

[moneyman255]

Dodgers payroll is now 223 M and they still want to add either Shields or another top SP via trade according to Heyman.

 

[Slateman]

Hasn't baseball always been about buying all the talent though?

10 - 15 years ago, yes. Now? not so much.

 

[Goober]

Greinke has been at least a five win player, for each of the last five years. Not sure why everyone thinks it is such an overpay. This is market value.

 

[NAHSTE]

Hasn't baseball always been about buying all the talent though?

:hodorpls:

 

[moneyman255]

Greinke has been at least a five win player, for each of the last five years. Not sure why everyone thinks it is such an overpay. This is market value.

I agree with it being market value, but according to Fan Graphs he was a 4.0 WAR pitcher in 2011.

It's not a terrible overpay, but Greinke is not worth 150 M. I would say 6/110-120 would be fair for a guy like Greinke, but hey, the Dodgers have unlimited amount of money they can throw at a player these days, and Kershaw-Greinke is a hell of a 1-2 punch.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

I agree with it being market value, but according to Fan Graphs he was a 4.0 WAR pitcher in 2011.

It's not a terrible overpay, but Greinke is not worth 150 M. I would say 6/110-120 would be fair for a guy like Greinke, but hey, the Dodgers have unlimited amount of money they can throw at a player these days, and Kershaw-Greinke is a hell of a 1-2 punch.

The thing is, this was the second-highest contract in MLB history for a pitcher, and the highest for a right-handed pitcher. There is a good amount of starting pitchers that I would consider better than Greinke, and it seems like an overpay when you look at the history of spending for pitchers Greinke is a damn good pitcher and that combination is going to be good, but they really did overpay.

 

[EmpireWF]

Lots of guys have been overpaid this off-season though, so it's to be expected.

 

[mcstl25]

This contract is an absolute joke. Paying a guy $25 million per year for a guy that has a career record of 91-77, an ERA or 3.77, and history of mental issues? :lol:

This contract is nowhere near market value. I look forward to seeing this nutcase fail miserably in LA.

/Rant