Dodgers Rumor Round Up: Relief Market, Free Agent, Trade

I mentioned it on the first slide but I suppose it bears mention a second time, a signing happened in major league baseball that both directly hurts the Dodgers and indirectly hurts them for the remainder of the offseason.

Per Jeff Passan of ESPN, the Yankees agreed to terms with premier reliever Adam Ottavino on a three-year/$27 million deal. The move puts Ottavino in the same bullpen as Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances and Zach Britton; giving the Yanks arguably the best bullpen in baseball.

Ottavino was also a key relief domino in the 2019 market. Not only was he a rumored Dodger target as well as a top wish-list piece for Dodger fans, but Ottavino’s signing now opens the door for teams to start bidding on smaller relief arms like Cody Allen.

Sure, Craig Kimbrel is on the market but after a year in which his peripheral statistics took a nose-dive and he also made it clear he is looking for big money, he is not your prototypical Dodger target.

So how does Ottavino signing a deal hurt the Dodgers indirectly? Supply and demand.

With Ottavino off the table remaining pen arms can ask for more money. The Dodgers big target is off the board so players can use that to leverage a bigger deal.

In my own personal opinion, this could just shut the Dodgers down on the free agent reliever front for the rest of the offseason but we will have to wait and see.