The Los Angeles Dodgers have the highest payroll in baseball with no championship to show for it, so they’ve been making some changes. A major change announced Thursday morning is that the Dodgers trade Matt Kemp to the San Diego Padres.
Outfielder Matt Kemp and catcher Tim Federowicz will go to the Padres in exchange for Yasmani Grandal, Joe Wieland and Zach Eflin to the Dodgers.
via USA Today:
The deal, which will also have the Dodgers sending about $31 million to cover part of the remaining $107 million in Kemp’s contract, is expected to be finalized today.
“We obviously traded away some very good players tonight,” says Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, who has now made 10 trades in 26 days on the job. “But we feel with the totality of the moves ourselves, we made ourselves a better team.”
Kemp, who missed 145 games with injuries during the 2012-2013 seasons, bounced back to hit .287 last season with 25 homers and 89 RBI. His greatest season was in 2011 when he batted .324 with 39 homers, 126 RBI and 40 stolen bases, finishing runner-up to Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun in the MVP race.
The Dodgers had been shopping all of their outfielders all winter, but Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier drew little interest.
