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Well, ain't this some ...
The Dodgers re-signed second baseman Howie Kendrick to a two-year, $20 million deal. This, after he declined the team's qualifying offer of $15.8 million, is something of a steal. Because if there's something we should all be concerned with, it's that the Dodgers figure out ways to save money. They did just that, and they got better in the process. Which is mighty annoying.
Kendrick hit .295/.336/.409 last year, good for a 107 OPS+, which is right around his career averages. His defense is usually somewhere around average, and he's 32. All of this suggests a player that should have been overpaid in the third and fourth year of his deal as a tax to get his next two, productive years. Instead, the Dodgers get all of the reward with a fraction of the risk.
The Angels need a second baseman, and they were acutely aware of Kendrick's talents. They passed. The Royals are going to pretend that Omar Infante wasn't awful for them last year, which forced them to trade solid prospects for Ben Zobrist in the first place. The Diamondbacks are going to rock it with Chris Owings after spending their budget for the next decade on Zack Greinke.
All of those teams are killing me right now.
Now, Kendrick isn't that great, as his ZiPS projection gives him just a single win over Enrique Hernandez, the favorite to win the job before Friday. But that's a win the Giants could probably use in 2016. It's a win they'll likely need, and they'll have to hope another player flops that win away.
On the bright side, at least Chase Utley is probably annoyed.
The biggest silver lining is that the Dodgers don't get a draft pick for Kendrick leaving, which means that in five years, we get to look back at the 2016 MLB Draft, and pretend that the Dodgers missed out on the best player selected after the #40 pick in the draft. That might not be rational or honest, but I'll take it. There's no point in being a sports fan if you're not petty about it.
The Dodgers got a little better in a division race where a little better can mean everything. Hopefully everything else will collapse around them, just like they deserve.
In honor of the Angels being short-sighted and trapped under the weight of a dumb Josh Hamilton contract, here's a video of Barry Bonds murdering a baseball dead against the Angels: