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Dodgers: 3 questions to ask after Craig Kimbrel-AJ Pollock trade
You just knew Andrew Friedman had one final trick up his sleeve for the Los Angeles Dodgers before Opening Day, and he proved that by importing Craig Kimbrel via a trade with the Chicago White Sox. It was a straight-up swap for outfielder AJ Pollock.
Pollock was set to earn $13 million in 2022 (with a $10 million player option or $5 million buyout for 2023) for the Dodgers, and they’ve essentially saved $2 million by taking on Kimbrel’s $16 million in the final year of his contract.
Now, Kimbrel will become the Dodgers’ closer following Kenley Jansen’s departure and Pollock will take over in right field, providing the White Sox with another threatening bat in a lineup that’s already full of them.
But there are a few things to ponder here. Though Chicago’s initial trade for Kimbrel with the Cubs last year proved to be a dud, they seemed to have made the proper swap/upgrade this time around. Pollock is among the league’s better hitters when healthy and the White Sox added both Kendall Graveman and Joe Kelly to make up for Kimbrel’s loss.
Though this seems great for the Dodgers on paper, we have a few questions that might make fans re-think their motive here.
3 question to ponder following Dodgers-White Sox Craig Kimbrel-AJ Pollock trade
3. How Will Craig Kimbrel Fare After Rough Stretch With White Sox?
Kimbrel is without a doubt one of the best closers in baseball history … but his 2019 and 2020 seasons as well as his second half of 2021 were disastrous. Mixed in was a near-flawless 39-game stint during the first half of last season with the Cubs, which featured an 0.49 ERA, 0.71 WHIP, 23 saves and 64 strikeouts in 36.2 innings.
In those other 59 innings, though? A 5.64 ERA and 1.44 WHIP. All we’re trying to say is that it hasn’t really been great ever since his 2018 World Series run with the Boston Red Sox, who were quick to jettison him that offseason as the warning signs continued to pop up throughout the playoffs that October.
And if we’re being honest, Kimbrel serving as a closer for a non-contender in the Cubs, especially during their last few years of colossal disappointment, doesn’t exactly instill the utmost confidence with regard to him handling a tremendous spotlight in LA, where the fans just spent years grilling the greatest closer in franchise history for blowing any game.
How Kimbrel rebounds from his humbling second-half experience with the White Sox will be crucial to him finding success with the Dodgers.
2. So … Who Plays Left Field Now?
On the surface, AJ Pollock isn’t a name you hear and immediately think “star” or “I don’t wanna face that guy!”, but he’s been one of the best hitters on the Dodgers since the start of 2020.
Though he constantly deals with various injuries that limit his time on the field, he has a career 116 OPS+ and has recorded marks of 132 and 137 the last two seasons. His 16 home runs and 34 RBI in 55 regular-season games in the shortened 2020 played a huge role in the Dodgers snapping their World Series drought.
Then came 2021, where he appeared in 117 games (his most since 2015), registered an .892 OPS alongside 21 homers and 69 RBI, and tore the cover off the ball in the NLCS against the Braves.
That’s tremendous production from the left field spot … so now who’s going to play out there? Will it be Chris Taylor, so LA can put together their dream infield of Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Trea Turner and Justin Turner? Or will one of those guys DH with Edwin Rios, Gavin Lux, Zach McKinstry or Hanser Alberto getting some valuable reps? Or is this an opportunity to give Lux as many at-bats as possible to see if he can live up to the billing after a slow start to his MLB career?
Either way, it’s hard to deny the Dodgers just removed a very productive player from an important position without a key answer. Taylor can certainly play a good left field, but he’s had more experience at shortstop and center field (overall in his career) and just as much at second base over the last couple of seasons.
This is hardly a “problem,” but Dave Roberts now needs to ensure Pollock’s production isn’t completely lost with whatever lineup variation he trots out there.
1. Why Didn’t the Dodgers Just Re-Sign Kenley Jansen Instead?
Well, we kind of know the answer to this. The Dodgers reportedly dragged their feet with Jansen, who ended up signing a one-year, $16 million contract with the Braves, because they were looking to clear space to avoid the “Cohen Tax” threshold, which was named after New York Mets owner Steve Cohen after he jacked his team’s payroll up near $300 million this offseason.
The next and final tax threshold is the $290 million mark, which the Dodgers were about $3 million short of hitting … but the caveat here is that they’re waiting for MLB to settle Trevor Bauer’s case to determine if they’ll have to pay him at all or for a portion of this season.
Either way, it’s uncharacteristic for the Dodgers to leave a franchise legend in limbo while they try to sort out their finances, which have famously not been a concern for nearly a decade now. And if they truly were that big of a worry, then why did this team sign Tyler Anderson, Andrew Heaney, Daniel Hudson and Danny Duffy for a combined $26.5 million? That’d mediocre to bad production for over $10 million more than what it would’ve cost to keep the franchise’s all-time saves leader.
Of course, the Dodgers simply needed more bodies to cover a certain amount of innings/production, but Heaney is famously bad/ineffective, Hudson is coming off a very bad 2020 and second half of 2021, and Duffy probably won’t be available until the second half of the season.
All we’re trying to say? The Dodgers could’ve maybe not signed one of Anderson, Heaney or Hudson (probably Heaney) and had been able to keep Jansen and Pollock without eclipsing the $290 million tax mark.
This is Andrew Friedman, though. He usually has all the answers. But it’s worth questioning this sequence, because it seems there were a few more obvious paths to fill the necessary voids without subtracting above-average output from another area of the roster.
