Anyone who was tired of seeing all the best free agents head out west to Los Angeles should probably stop reading this now, lest it ruin your day.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have signed left handed relief pitcher Tanner Scott to a 4 year, $72M contract the club announced on Sunday. Scott’s deal will include a $20M signing bonus, as well as $21M in deferred payments.
The 30 year old was arguably the best reliever on the market this offseason, and now joins a Dodgers roster which is the envy of the league. Prior to the signing, LA had already signed Blake Snell, one of the best starters on the market; brought back Teoscar Hernandezand signed Michael Conforto and Blake Treinen, added KBO star Hyeseong Kim, traded away Gavin Lux, extended Tommy Edman; and added Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki.
In short, any other team’s dream offseason was just par for the course for the free-spending Dodgers.
Splitting time between Miami and San Diego, from 2023 to 2024 Scott posted a 2.04 ERA in 146 appearances, striking out 188 batters and issuing 60 walks across 150 innings.
With the deal in place, LA’s proceed luxury tax payroll is estimated to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $375M which is $70M more than their next closest competitor. That gap between the Dodgers and the second place Phillies alone is more than the Oakland Athletics spent on their entire 2024 MLB payroll ($62.1M).
Whether LA is done adding or not this winter is anyone’s guess. However one would have to assume they’ll be slowing down their offseason frenzy as they’ll soon be out of spots to roster all the players they continue to add.
Photo: D. Benjamin Miller. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.