With the Dodgers on the hunt for starting pitching, they've been consistently linked to all the top starters on the free-agent market. Most recently, there have been reports that LA is the most likely landing spot for reigning AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, who is going into his age-40 season.
SportsNetLA analyst Jerry Hairston Jr. said on Access Dodgers on Tuesday that a Verlander/Dodgers combo makes a lot of sense.
“I would think at least a two-year deal. You know obviously, maybe record setting numbers as far as dollar signs,” Hairston Jr. said. “I just really love where he’s at at this point of his career even though he’s around, his late 30s, to me he’s looking like a guy who’s still throwing 97, 98 miles an hour, like a 36, 35-year-old. So if you give him that multi-year deal, you put him in our rotation with [Julio Urias] and Clayton Kershaw, to go along with our young studs, I think it’s the perfect marriage.”
Hairston is right about Verlander's velocity. In 2022, his four-seam fastball averaged 95.1 MPH. In 2012, ten years earlier and the year he won the Cy Young and the MVP for the Tigers, it averaged 94.7. His strikeout, walk, and home run rates were all better in 2022 than they were in his historic 2011 season.
As Hairston mentioned, Verlander will be expensive, and there have been rumblings that the Dodgers are hoping to dip under the luxury tax for a year to reset the escalating penalties. But Hairston isn't concerned about that.
“You don’t have to be under the luxury tax, what, until the last day of the season, right? So you can get creative throughout the regular season. There are trades that you can make to make you get under that luxury tax. But if you have a chance to get a difference-maker like a Justin Verlander, you go all in and go all for it, and then you worry about getting under the luxury tax later. So the Dodgers have proven they can get creative, not just in the offseason, but throughout the season if they need to get under that luxury tax.”
While it's true that luxury tax payrolls aren't calculated until the end of the season, every dollar you pay during the year counts. So if the Dodgers traded a guy making $15 million at the trade deadline, it would only save them $5 million, not the full amount. So every day matters on the luxury tax.
The bigger point is that a team like the Dodgers shouldn't let the luxury tax stop them from improving their team.
More must-reads: