Major League Baseball

What will it cost to move a Dodgers outfielder?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:53 p.m. ET

foxsports

So, the Dodgers want to trade at least one of their high-priced outfielders.

Well, they had better keep their calculators handy.

It’s 21st-century baseball math: The more dollars a team includes in a deal, the better the return. And for the Dodgers, that sliding scale will translate into some particularly big numbers.

Matt Kemp is owed $107 million over five years, Carl Crawford $62.25 million over three and Andre Ethier $56 million over three, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Put those three on the open market, however, and their actual values would be less — significantly less in the cases of Crawford and Ethier.

At this point, I would guess that Kemp would go for five years, $95 million; Crawford for three years, $36 million; and Ethier for three years, $30 million.

To illustrate how a trade would work, let’s use Ethier as an example.

A prospective suitor would not give up premium talent to acquire Ethier even at market rate; most clubs today would rather spend money than part with players.

So, for the Dodgers to get the talent they wanted, they would need to “pay down” Ethier’s contract to below his market value.

Start with a $26 million payment to knock Ethier’s deal down to my estimated $30 million over three years. And then keep adding — $5 million? $10 million? — to enhance the return.

Such is the price of doing business when a team wants to move overpriced players. And such is the challenge in trading them.

The Dodgers, under new president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, will figure out something. But it’s going to take a lot of imagination, and at least a little more time.