{"id":969715,"date":"2026-11-13T23:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T23:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/969715\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T23:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T23:32:27","slug":"mlb-free-agent-market-is-active-but-will-the-dodgers-make-a-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/969715\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB free agent market is active, but will the Dodgers make a move?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The MLB free agent market is beginning to shake out, spurred into action during the general managers meetings<\/a> in Las Vegas this week.<\/p>\n

Reliever acquisitions have been the first wave, with Emilio Pag\u00e1n landing with the Tigers for one year and $11.5 million, and Ryan Weiss with the Padres for $1.85 million during the meetings. Former Dodger Evan Phillips signed with the Braves on Thursday<\/a> for three years, $35 million.<\/p>\n

Left-hander Alex Vesia<\/a>, who has been with the Dodgers<\/a> for the last six seasons, is also expected to garner plenty of early interest on the free agent market.<\/p>\n

On Friday, first baseman Jake Bauers added a tally to the position-player side, agreeing to a deal with the Red Sox. Fresh off a career year and World Series title<\/a>, Bauers reportedly is set to sign a four-year, $58-million contract.<\/p>\n

So teams aren\u2019t waiting until after the impending lockout to reinforce their rosters. But that still leaves a wide range of possibilities before the current CBA expires on Dec. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re totally focused on business as usual, trying to make sure we\u2019re as prepared as possible in case things happen in different ways,\u201d Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes<\/a> said. \u201cWhether that\u2019s trade or free agency, continue to put ourselves in a position to be able to act if something comes up that we feel like is really important to helping our team, both short term and long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was a common refrain from leaders of baseball operations departments around the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness as usual for us,\u201d new Orioles GM Jared Banner said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to get better, and that\u2019s our focus here. So we\u2019ll just read and react as each day passes by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Business as usual, however, means a variety of things for different teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always going to be on the front end of aggression with how we operate in the market,\u201d Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. \u201cSo whether the market wants to operate faster or slower than it typically does, we\u2019re usually not listening. \u2026 Teams know that typically, if we don\u2019t start the hot stove, we\u2019re among the starters. So our behavior won\u2019t change much, and my general resting place is, if our behavior is going to be unaffected, I don\u2019t sweat too much what the other 29 teams will do, unless they\u2019re holding us up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mariners took that aggressive approach before the last lockout too. They were one of the major contributors to an active first month of free agency, during which teams committed a whopping $1.9 billion before Dec. 2, 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a convenient thing to point to because there just aren\u2019t a lot of situations that are even remotely similar to this,\u201d Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said of the record flurry of activity five years ago. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to follow the same course; I would expect it not to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looming beyond this lockout is the threat of a salary cap. And though the MLB Players Assn. has made it clear that it will continue to fight the owners\u2019 push for an overhaul of the current structure, teams also can\u2019t completely ignore the possibility of a salary cap, or some other guardrails on spending in the next CBA.<\/p>\n

The owners\u2019 latest proposal reportedly included a salary cap of about $258.2 million, depending on next year\u2019s revenue, to be implemented in 2028.<\/p>\n

Though many around the industry expect that, in the case of a salary cap, MLB would build in a gradual rollout or specific exceptions to make the massive change a little less destabilizing, such a shift would pose a challenge to large-payroll teams such as the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers have some money set to come off the books in 2028 \u2014 veteran first baseman Freddie Freeman<\/a>\u2019s contract expires after next season, and Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, Max Muncy<\/a> and Hyeseong Kim<\/a> have 2028 club options. But the Dodgers\u2019 current commitments for 2028 (over $275 million in CBT payroll, according to Spotrac) already put them above MLB\u2019s latest proposed salary cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll put ourselves in position to see what\u2019s available, and then go from there because we really don\u2019t know what any of that looks like,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cSo we have to function with what we know right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers at least don\u2019t have many glaring needs going into 2027. At the top of the list will be their bullpen and bench, markets that they could explore in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve also remained in touch with top free agent Tarik Skubal\u2019s representatives<\/a>, after a largely successful trade-deadline union this past season, and are set to meet with him. But it is still unclear just how aggressive the Dodgers will be, or whether Skubal will agree to a contract by Dec. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MLB free agent market is beginning to shake out, spurred into action during the general managers meetings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":969716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[45,49,48,330257,5716,119713,511,107115,462,330256,41302,18631,27803,6903,82,2341,1432,2813,2552],"class_list":["post-969715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-case-thing","tag-contract","tag-dec","tag-dodgers","tag-lockout","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agent-market","tag-owner","tag-possibility","tag-salary-cap","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-team","tag-tigers","tag-week","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}