Although it’s early in the Dodgers’ season, the allure of next year’s monster free agent class is just too tantalizing to wait until October. Here is a breakdown of who will be available this winter and who makes sense for the Dodgers.
Assuming the Dodgers don’t make any in-season acquisitions that take them over the salary cap, they will reset the luxury tax for 2019. This will take their penalty from 50% down to 20%. Given the Front Office’s lack of off-season upgrades, this clearly seemed to be the marching orders going into 2018.
Resetting the penalty frees up a nice stockpile of cash for the Dodgers to make some big moves to build around a solid core of young talent. But the biggest question may be whether their ace left-hander, Clayton Kershaw opts out of his contract, and if so, how much money are the Dodgers willing to commit to bring him back.