"The Dodgers, meanwhile, were swooping in late to snatch away the hard-throwing right-hander, submitting a more lucrative three-year bid that would pay Díaz a relief-pitcher-record $23 million per season. Just like that, the Dodgers had gone from a perfectly content, but unremarkably quiet winter, to one in which they'd once again flexed their financial muscles and stunned the baseball industry."
""There were a lot of scenarios [that could have potentially played out this winter] where we didn't necessarily end up with a top-end reliever," president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Tuesday night, while declining to comment on Díaz directly since the transaction wasn't finalized. "But we just kind of prepared on a bunch of different fronts. And being aggressive, if something lined up, we've known all along [it is something we would do].""
"The Díaz signing was an affirmation of the team's operating procedure on the free-agent market. They always at least target top talent. They always at least stay around the proverbial blackboard, as Friedman calls it, in case a player's market doesn't develop as expected. And now, they are armed with the kind of endless resources that can make them a threat to scoop up any rebound."
At the MLB winter meetings in Orlando, Edwin Díaz, the top reliever on the free-agent market, moved away from the New York Mets after the Mets offered a three-year contract that failed to entice him. The Los Angeles Dodgers submitted a late, more lucrative three-year offer paying Díaz a relief-pitcher-record $23 million per season, seizing a high-end bullpen asset. The Dodgers' willingness to make that investment reflects a strategy of targeting top talent, maintaining contingency plans, and leveraging vast financial resources. Team leadership indicated preparation across multiple fronts and readiness to pursue elite players if opportunities arise during the offseason.
Read at Los Angeles Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]