Matt Kemp Traded, Era Ends

This swing, won’t be seen in a Dodger uniform for the next 5 years (at least) Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

The Matthew Ryan Kemp era has ended in Los Angeles with Catcher Yasmani Grandal, minor league right hander Joe Wieland, and Zach Eflin coming to Los Angeles and Kemp plus Tim Federowicz going to the Padres along with 30 million dollars according to an article by U-T San Diego.

*will update you on final details if there is something different included in the official deal*

There’s a lot to sort through right now, but before you make any real judgements on this move, I know Cole Hamels might be on a plane ride to LA along with Jimmy Rollins meeting Yasmani Grandal at the airport from his drive up or something which would be something considering the underwhelming return they got for Kemp. Please know that Matt Kemp was one of the best hitter the Dodgers have developed in like 15 years. He nearly gave the Dodgers an MVP winner in 2011, he played with a labrum literally torn off of his shoulder for 2 months at a time, he was a joy to watch, he was a pain to watch when you knew he was not physically right, he was the “selfish OF”, he was the hero of the 2014 Dodgers in the 2nd half. But towards the latter part, he was the subject of trade rumors that would just not go away.

Everything that could go wrong (from a standpoint of him continuing his Dodgers career) did, A.J. Preller was hired as the general manager of the Padres during the Summer. The Padres hired away Logan White soon after the Dodgers brought in the duo of Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi who are certainly in the business of selling high like we saw today with Dee Gordon.

So bringing in the sabermetrically minded front office had ramifications for Matt Kemp. In an era where defense is crazily sought after, Matt Kemp is somehow undervalued. Kemp being worth 23, and 22.4 runs below average this season, (DRS/UZR respectively) put him in not only historically bad ranks, but completely polarized his view among Dodger fans. We all saw the awful defense, many were asking for him to be traded as he faltered in CF, was benched for nearly a week in late-May, and as he “stumbled” to a 117 wRC+ by the all star break, the calls for him being traded were louder than ever. And then he turned it up, in the second half he hit .309/.365/.606, in a world were offense is deprived, he was hitting like it was 1996. And then the calls for him being traded quieted down, Ned Colletti went on air to reaffirm his love for Kemp, and the trust the organization had in his ability.

Then he hit that go ahead home run in game 2 of the NLDS, you remember it well, I was shaking when it happened because so much trauma hit me then, the Dodgers playoff failures went away for a second, and I could just see Matt Kemp, the greatest homegrown position player since Beltre (?) rounding the bases, completing the comeback from being booed in May 2013 (10 MONTHS REMOVED FROM PLAYING THROUGH A TORN LABRUM) bailing the Dodgers out in a tough situation, like he did for the entirety of the McCourt era.

Well this upcoming season there will be no bailing out from Matt Kemp. Matty is going south to San Diego where he has been rumored to be going the entire offseason. Which makes sense, Logan White drafted him, A.J. Preller wanted a right handed bat, FriedZaidi wanted to get rid of an OF, things just fit. So it’s not a surprise that Kemp’s gone, and depending on what the return is, it could very well be great for the team in the long run. But that couldn’t be further from the point. The point in discussing a Kemp trade on a somewhat emotional level can be found in Ken Arneson’s essay regarding the Josh Donaldson trade that the A’s pulled off earlier this offseason

"I am not an A’s fan because I want to be able to look up my team on the list of World Series winners on Baseball-Reference.com. I do want to be able to do that, but that is not my motivation. I am an A’s fan because I want to connect with a team, watch them grow and compete together as a team, and hopefully eventually win a championship. But it’s the process of competing, and the feelings of connectedness it provides, both to the team and to my fellow fans, that is why I follow the team. The emotional connection is the product I am buying, not the results on the scoreboard. So when the A’s trade a player I have connected to and become loyal to, it does feel like a kind of betrayal. But I can handle that kind of betrayal. It’s one of the emotional experiences I am committing to when I commit to being a fan of a team. Ups and downs will happen. That’s life. The reason I do not like the Josh Donaldson trade is because it is more than just having to go through the emotions of disconnecting from a good player I had grown fond of. It is beyond that. It is a rejection of the very reason I watch baseball. It is a rejection of the values I believe in. And that is difficult to accept."

Replace “A’s” with “Dodgers” and “Donaldson” with “Kemp” and there’s a match. It shows exactly why I don’t want to accept a Kemp trade, and the condescending reaction being “don’t get emotionally attached to a player” is absurd when dealing with a player who 1) was likeable, 2) played through injury to satisfy people who liked seeing him perform 3) took an unfathomable amount of grief during May of 2013 for a month and a half of not performing due to a bum shoulder caused directly because of the fact that he attempted to perform when his body did not let him do so solely for the fans and love for a game that he plays.

Back to the Arneson point, I wanted Kemp to win a championship in Los Angeles. I wanted him to look at this organization and feel like he accomplished something other than just sign a big contract and appear in the playoffs a couple of times. Maybe this goes back to how little position players the Dodgers have been able to develop on their own through the draft recently, but Kemp broke the mold. He was the outlier, the guy who put all of the tools together. He was the guy who went from basketball player to baseball star, he was the guy that Jacob Scavuzzo dreams of being, he is the guy that James Baldwin craves to be. Mad athleticism with just the right amount of polish to become a superstar, only hindered by terrible managers (Torre, Mattingly), and injuries.

So there will be much discussion about who the Dodgers got, about how exactly the Dodgers improve, how much they do so mathematically going from Kemp (a player who played in the wrong generation) to a potential haul of Grandal, Hamels, and Rollins, but just look at this for a second

"And that’s all well good and fine, but as a die-hard Phillies fan for life, my heart says that we all should just shut the frick up about trading Cole Hamels because he’s too cool and awesome as a pitcher and he’s been around for too long to let him go play for some other jerk team that totally won’t “get” him like we do. In fact, after the first sentence of that last paragraph, my heart walked up my chest and through my neck and took a ball-peen hammer to my brain’s kneecaps. And after the second sentence, it kicked my brain in the junk. Just right square in the bit and pieces. And rightly so. The heart wants what the heart wants, and this heart wants my brain to go straight to hell for even contemplating a trade of our precious little Colbert. Especially after a season like this one."

“let him go play for some other jerk team that totally won’t ‘get’ him like we do”. Damn Bill Baer, you know. I’ll never “get” Cole Hamels, Cole is a funny dancer, and a hell of a pitcher who can somehow dial it up in the playoffs, but i’ll never get him like the Phillies did, being a homegrown guy who was on the team when they broke the long losing streak of futility in Philadelphia. He is, after all, one of the greatest starters ever developed by the Phillies, and there’s something to be said about that. I’ll go ahead and say it, Kemp for me, was on the short list of best Dodger hitters of all time, he’s on the list of Piazza, Guerrero, Snider, Sheffield, he’s on the list at least, and it will be difficult to fathom seeing him in the same division as the Dodgers. Seeing him 18 times a year in the awful uniforms the Padres employ will be  horrendous. Seeing him dogged by the media down South for “coming back to soon” or “constantly being injured” will be sickening. But most of all, the fact that he gets to take a shot at the Dodgers 18 times a year for the next 5 years. That’s a whole 90 games we’ll have to tolerate that impossibly wide smile, those impossibly long home runs, that impossibly beautiful swing.

There are obviously questions about Kemp and his ability to stay healthy long term as his hamstrings start to break down, as the power goes away, as he becomes more of a DH. But that comes later. Right now Matt Kemp is going to a new team in the same division as the one that gave up on him, Kemp is going to face his former team 18 times a year. Kemp has a situation where he is about to go into an offseason training regimen that made him into the MVP candidate in 2011, with no restrictions. Kemp is in a situation where he’ll play a corner OF all year which will make it seem like he made a big improvement on defense, but was really just put into a situation where he could succeed.

Anyways it’s a done deal, this feels a lot like a salary dump, the memories will be in full effect tomorrow when it sinks in that the Dodgers just traded away their franchise player as recently as 2012. I hope this brings Hamels without having to give up too much of our own farm system but I just do not know right now.

"And that’s all well good and fine, but as a die-hard Phillies fan for life, my heart says that we all should just shut the frick up about trading Cole Hamels because he’s too cool and awesome as a pitcher and he’s been around for too long to let him go play for some other jerk team that totally won’t “get” him like we do. In fact, after the first sentence of that last paragraph, my heart walked up my chest and through my neck and took a ball-peen hammer to my brain’s kneecaps. And after the second sentence, it kicked my brain in the junk. Just right square in the bit and pieces. And rightly so. The heart wants what the heart wants, and this heart wants my brain to go straight to hell for even contemplating a trade of our precious little Colbert. Especially after a season like this one."