Zack Greinke signs with Dodgers

Well, say, that's much worse than the Diamondbacks signing Brandon McCarthy.

But if you hadn't already resigned yourself to this one, you weren't paying attention. The Dodgers aren't spending all the money because one of the owners is still trying to impress Ann Grementhel from home room. They're actively spending more than anyone else in baseball because that's what they want to be known for. They want to be the bully. They want to fill the void left by the cost-conscious Yankees in a town without a football team.

This is how they're going about it. The best free agent on the market? For the next few years, whoever that is will be absorbed and assimilated into the moneyblob. And every other team will expect it and fear it. If you were looking for motivation for the upcoming season, here you go. The Dodgers are fancypantses. All of them. And it would be delicious if they finished in fourth place next season.

You don't want to minimize what they've done, though. They're not likely to finish in fourth, for example. Since the start of last year, the Dodgers have replaced James Loney and Aaron Harang with Adrian Gonzalez and Zack Greinke. That's like the Giants going from Ryan Theriot to Marco Scutaro ... if Scutaro were likely to keep hitting like he did in September and October. It's like the Giants going from Tim Lincecum last year to the pitcher we're desperately hoping Tim Lincecum will be next year.

Kershaw and Greinke at the top of the rotation is pretty nasty, consarnit.

This should be fun over the next decade. The Dodgers will get the best players in baseball, and we'll root for them to fail. I still think the Diamondbacks are scarier for next season, but the new owner of the Dodgers weren't kidding when they said they were going to spend. Jon Heyman says they might go after Anibal Sanchez and Kyle Lohse, too, which would mean if the Giants wanted to win, they would have to go through Anibal Sanchez and Kyle Lohse.

Gee, that would be unlikely and difficult.

If there had to be a new financial bully in baseball, I'm almost glad it's the Dodgers. The odds are they won't win the World Series every year, and when they don't, it will be glorious. The Yankees winning in 2009 was annoying, but think of all the years we've had the opportunity to laugh at them when they failed. That's like a special gift.

The Dodgers are giving us that gift, so long as they don't win the stupid thing.

(A Nick Swisher in left field would help, there, Giants. I don't feel so greedy now for asking for it.)

(Stupid Dodgers.)

(BOOOOO ZACK GREINKE BOOOOOOOOOOO YOU SMELL)