Dec. 02--The question did not seem unreasonable. Are the Dodgers trying to bring back Zack Greinke?
"That's the buzzword that sends me running out of this room," Dodgers General Manager Farhan Zaidi said Tuesday.
Greinke is a free agent. There can be no tampering.
No matter, at least not to Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers' president of baseball operations. The players' union might frown on the greatest-spending team in sports history saying it does -- or does not -- want to spend on Greinke.
"It affects his market," Friedman said.
That, and the folks in Dodgers management would prefer you had no idea what they might be up to, if only in an effort to keep every other team guessing. That, and Casey Close, the agent for Greinke, says nothing about contract talks and strongly prefers that bidding teams say nothing as well.
But this answer was so obvious -- the need so glaring, the fit so snug -- that one of the owners of the team stood about a dozen feet from Friedman and stood up for the fans.
"We all want him back," Magic Johnson said.
Greinke is coming off a season in which he put up the lowest earned-run average -- 1.66 -- of any major league starter in 20 years.
"He is our priority -- our No. 1 priority in the off-season," Johnson said. "We are going to put in our bid, just like I'm sure other teams will. He's our priority. We like that 1-2 punch that we have with him and Clayton [Kershaw].
"So we have a lot of resources, yes, and we are using those resources to make our team better."
The question took on a sense of urgency because when the Dodgers gathered in the morning to introduce Dave Roberts as their new manager, there were two elite pitchers available in free agency. When the Dodgers turned out the lights and took down the stage in the afternoon, that inventory was down to one.
David Price agreed to sign with the Boston Red Sox, for seven years and $217 million. That leaves Greinke, and a plentiful list of starters in the non-elite class.
Price averages $31 million a season in his deal. Kershaw averages $31 million in his.
Greinke is 32, two years older than Price. A deal that spans seven years would be unlikely for him. A deal that averages $32 million would not be.
