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International free agency used to be an open season kind of thing, where teams would spend whatever they wanted to get the players they desired. When assigned budgets were introduced after the last collective bargaining agreement negotiations, though, that changed, as teams now only had a few million dollars -- or less -- allotted to them, based on their record the previous season. In recent years, we’ve seen some teams go way over budget, not caring about the penalties -- the most ridiculous of these the Red Sox and Yankees in the last signing period -- but the Dodgers are now part of that club thanks to Thursday’s performance on the 2015-2016 signing period’s opening day.
The Dodgers had a budget of $2,020,300 to spend, the fourth-lowest in the game. On Thursday alone, they signed two players who would have busted that budget by themselves, and a third who would have come close: Cuban right-hander Yadier Alvarez signed for $16 million, while Starling Heredia and Ronny Brito agreed to bonuses of $2.6 million and $2 million, respectively. What’s even better about all this is that the Dodgers signed nine players total, but we don’t yet know the bonuses for four of them. Oh, and there are 11 months left in this signing period: the Dodgers are already $20 million over budget, and guaranteed to go higher than that. And that doesn’t count the 100 percent tax on their spending that they’ll owe. Yup, the Dodgers casually dropped over $40 million yesterday, from a starting point of just over $2 million.
You have to appreciate the audacity of it all, though, especially since Los Angeles used a portion of their allotted budget to trade for other players yesterday as well. The $2,020,300 allowed for them is actually broken into smaller chunks, which can be dealt to other teams. So, since the Dodgers were over budget anyway and there is no extra penalty for being even further over, they sent more than half of their assigned budget elsewhere to teams trying to follow the rules. One wonders if the owners who were trying to cut spending/hoard their money regret their lack of foresight right about now.
- Melissa Mayeux is one international free agent, the first woman to ever be eligible for that list. It turns out she’s something of a badass who loves Derek Jeter and despises the very idea of the DH.
- The future general manager of the Angels has a whole lot to think about, like the fact that the price of having Mike Trout is a meddling owner and a manager who’s actually your boss.
- The Red Sox can’t spend more than $300,000 on any international free agent this year or next thanks to their previous budget-busting (that’s the other cost of how the Dodgers did business on Thursday, for the record), but they ended up with a legitimate ranked prospect anyway.
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed with the Blue Jays on Thursday, so at some point we can assume he’ll sign with the Dodgers to continue the “Sort of like dad but not really” career parallel.
- The Mets are in a rough spot, so their manager has decided that human sacrifice is the way to get back on track. The Wilpons will probably be into it, since it’s cheaper than paying Troy Tulowitzki. Also, because they are monsters.
- Billy Butler is not what anyone with eyeballs would describe as fast, yet he has a triple and five infield hits this year.
- This is the most aggressive mid-game crotch adjustment we’ve ever seen.
- Jose Fernandez returned to the mound after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and he hit a dinger in the process.
- The Brewers’ bullpen catcher set a Citizens Bank Park record by eating 23 cheesesteaks over the course of their series with the Phillies.
- Future Mariners’ manager Willie Bloomquist was designated for assignment by the Mariners.
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