Editorials

Dodgers Rumors: Kemp Scheduled For Physical; Deadline Approaching

Matt Kemp

UPDATE (Dec. 17, 3:30 p.m PT): According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the deal could be completed and announced Thursday:



UPDATE (Dec. 17, 2:40 p.m. PT): According to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, a source close to the San Diego Padres believes the Matt Kemp trade will be completed:

UPDATE (Dec. 17, 11:00 a.m. PT): While there has yet to be official confirmation, the San Diego Padres are waiting on final details from Matt Kemp’s physical, according to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports:

Meanwhile, Bill Shaikin of the LA Times reports the Dodgers don’t have reason to believe the trade may come undone:

UPDATE (Dec. 16, 8:05 p.m. PT): According to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, Matt Kemp underwent his physical on Tuesday and the San Diego Padres will meet on Wednesday to discuss the results:

The Dodgers and Padres have until Thursday to complete the proposed trade.

[divide] Amid growing speculation that Matt Kemp would be dealt the San Diego Padres, the Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly agreed last week to send him down Interstate 5 in exchange for Yasmani Grandal and two pitching prospects.

Along with trading Kemp, the Dodgers are also expected to send $32 million to help offset his remaining salary and Tim Federowicz. The trade has yet to be finalized, but it may move closer to becoming official next week as according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, Kemp’s physical has been scheduled:

Once an MVP candidate, Kemp’s career was thrown off course by shoulder and ankle injuries, with the latter being his most recent ailment. He wasn’t with the Dodgers when they began the season in Australia, but was activated off the disabled list in time for their home opener against the San Francisco Giants.

Kemp showed expected rust upon returning and also lacked the speed the once possessed, which played a role in him being taken out of center field. After a failed experiment in left manager Don Mattingly inserted Kemp in right field, where he was more comfortable and began to show flashes of the the player he was pre-injuries.

Kemp swung the bat particularly well in the second half of the season and emerged as one of the driving forces in the Dodgers’ lineup. As it turns out, his improved play likely influenced his pending trade as he drew more interest than Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier.

That production is something the Padres were in search of at the Winter Meetings after failed pursuits to land other power, right-handed bats. Kemp, 30, has five years and $107 million remaining on his contract, though the Padres will only be responsible for $75 million.

Once the trade with the Padres is made official, the Dodgers acquiring Jimmy Rollins from the Philadelphia Phillies should be formalized soon after.

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37 Comments

    1. See you still don’t understand this trade. The Dodgers have now opened a spot for Pederson in Centerfield, our defense will be much improved which will negate the offense that will be lost in Ramirez and Kemp.

      1. First off…I understand the trade…….I just do not like the trade….opening a spot for Pederson could have been accomplished by trading Ethier or Crawford. OK? Now that being said, if Kemps value was so high, how come they got crap for him?? Grandal may be a great pitch framer, but he has a bad knee and he is a known PED user….sorry, I do not want that guy on my team……and the 2 minor league pitchers they got, well one is supposed to go to Philly for Rollins. So that means they got Grandal for Kemp, and the other rookie for Fed Ex…..excuse me, that is not enough return for your best power source in the OF……..Now you are ASSUMING Pederson is ready for prime time…….well he has not shown that yet.he will need to win the job by a wide margin to make a believer out of me, then he will need to carry that over into the season……and using Ethier in CF if Joc fails……no thanks,,,that ship has sailed…….and there is no way the defensis going to offset the loss of 45 HR’s and 160 ribbies,,,,it is asinine to even think that

        1. Matt Kemp’s value wasn’t so high, and it wasn’t going to get any higher. Don’t you find it odd that other teams looking for power backed out of the deal? It can’t be because the Dodgers’ asking price was too much. Clearly it wasn’t because look at what they’re getting in return. There were problems in that clubhouse. Kershaw vouched for Ellis. Why not vouch for Kemp? I loved seeing the guy succeed here, but I think it was time to move on from him.

          And everyone stop throwing around “lost HRs and lost RBIs.” The Cardinals defeated the Dodgers and they were second-to-last in HRs. The Royals made the World Series and they were dead last in HRs. It’s not about power. It’s about pitching and defense. Runs can be scored by getting guys on base and driving them in.

          1. Good points…..But the Cardinals lost to the Giants and so did the Royals….The Cards beat the Dodgers because the Dodgers bull pen sucked, otherwise Kershaw would have been out of game 1 before he imploded….and the Dodgers won their only game of the series on…..wait for it…..a Matt Kemp HR……..Ellis and Kersh are buddies…that’s why he vouched for him…..and the fans only hear rumors about clubhouse stuff…the A’s in the 70’s fought all the time….and Garvey and Sutton hated each other…..in the clubhouse is not on the field….people put way too much stock in that crap these days….as far as Kemps worth, you might be right…but he is damn sure worth more than what it came down to …a one for one for Grandal…..that’s a steal for SD

          2. Kemp was the one who aired his displeasure publically, in the press, on a number of occasions. Its one thing to be a jerk in the clubhouse, its another to take it outside the team.

          3. Well that’s his personality….I could give a damn less if he aired it in public..the guy wanted to play……Ethier said stuff too…….they all do in one way or another…does not stunt the fact that he WAS the best hitting OF on the team…Puig was inconsistent…..Crawford got hot the last month….Ethier sucked all year….SVS was a scrub, but played well at times…..so we agree to disagree….I like the guy. you don’t,,,,you win because he got traded…my view is that this trade, more than any other the last few years is going to come back and bite this team right in the ass……

          4. We all can agree on one thing : You would be a great publicity director for Matt Kemp!

          5. I like Matt it is true….but if they had traded him out of the league, or the division I could live with that…..

          6. Its obvious that either can’t be traded or HW would’ve been in Arizona now. So the best option they had was kemp. I’m a huge kemp fan but it was time to move him

          7. Probably…just not to Dago……anywhere but in the division……and AE won’t be a Dodger much longer…

          8. How? The Padres don’t have it in the front office to win, much less the clubhouse. The Cubs? Another story. You act like we traded him too the Giants. Its your other posts that give away you wouldn’t be happy anywhere Kemp went.

            As for Ethier, I have yet to see where he or his “friend” told the press he wants to be traded so that argument is dead in the water.

          9. where? I said I did not like him being traded in the division and the additional moves the Padres have made makes them a much stronger offensive team than the Giants…do not assume for one minute that you know how I think…..I like Matt…so what? But the trade was inevitable….I just do not agree with where he went…..19 games a year against us, and you are paying them for the opportunity of him beating you….sorry …that is asinine to me

          10. .225, his batting average, the only stupid guy here Michael appears to be you as quote an arcane Stat and then resort to name calling you meatball. His OBP is .325 and his OPS is .750 all in the worst hitters park in baseball. You need to run to Kmart and grab new Matt Kemp pajamas with the Padres logo. What are you scared of, this team as constructed won NOTHING and wasn’t going to win anything so get a grip. They need to get younger and deeper and they have already begun doing this. That fact that it has taken this long for the Padres to approve Kemp’s physical only further enhances my argument. If you need a dictionary for any word I used in here, just use Google

          11. Bite me moron…been watching this game a lot longer than you and OBP and all that crap does not drive in runs….so go suck a warm rock…that guy is crap compared to Kemp and will never be star material….he is a known PED user and has a bad knee that will no doubt flare up again…I care less about saber metric and all that stat junk.thats for the geeks…..tis team won 2 division titles in a row, which egghead, is not all that easy to do…they over came huge leads that other teams held on them ….and that is no easy eat either…..only Hanley’s injury, in 2013, and the BP’s ineptitude last year kept them out of the series……I watch the game and the players, not the stat sheet…. Kemp was just rounding back into form and what they got in return is garbage…..period……so go smoke a joint or something and keep that fake high you have dealing with this trade..the font office got jobbed and some fans disagree with you , so just screw off…

          12. it is very easy to do considering how bad the division is. subtract all the division games from the dodgers record and they had a losing record

          13. and if anyone is a moron it is you……all that sabermetric crap if for the birds….I watch what I guy does during a game, I do not sit there and analyze moronic stats that mean shisen…look that up in your google

    2. 15/377 compared to 25/599 are homer per at bat for grandal and kemp. keep in mind grandal had no one protecting him in the lineup. grandal’s knees are getting better but “kemp has hips like a grandmother.” you also get more hr’s from kendricks compared to dee.

  1. Us Dodger fans are lucky, our team is owned by a Chicago investment group ,who seem to be assisting their hometown team ,the Chicago Cubs ,become a power house while the Dodgers are reverting to being a team on a tight budget . None of the recent player moves impress me one bit .Yes the upgraded defensively,at SS and 2nd base, but they are also older and one year rentals .They Sold high an bought low in getting rid of Kemp. the biggest free agent they signed so far is getting Brandon McCarthy. I can’t really say that I’m excited and could hardly wait for the 2015 season to begin .SCREW Stan Kasten and his excuses and his rah,rah alibis. It reminds me of his fake concern over the Time Warner Cable debacle !

    1. I’m with ya man. Screw Magic Johnson too for tricking fans into thinking he would be an LA face to represent LA fans.

  2. Kemp was the 3rd worst full time outfielder in MLB over the last 5 yrs. In 2014 his defense alone cost somewhere between 16 and 22 runs depending on what model you believe. They moved him to A.) improve their defense in CF and clear a spot for their top prospect and B.) to rid themselves of $75m thereby creating flexibility for future roster moves. You guys forget, there is a luxury tax and the more years you go over the limit the higher it gets until it 50% of what you are over the limit. Grandal has a career .750 OPS playing in a worse hitters park than ours. That’s a really good hitting catcher if he does that. Also, stats measured last year had his hard contact rate, 24% higher than Kemp’s 22%. Grandal hit 15 HRS playing catcher in San Diego, Kemp hit 25. As for Kendrick, LA will extend him 3 yrs guaranteed, he’s a big upgrade on both sides over Dee and Rollins is a 1 yr deal as Seager will be here in 2016. You build championship teams with the key pieces coming from within, the Cardinals and Giants prove that. The best SF players are Bumgarner, Posey, the SS, Sanodval…all home grown. You augment your team through FA. The Yankees of the last 90s had their key components come from within, the minute they became what the Dodgers were last year, they stopped winning titles. Hanley is lazy, Kemp is on the downside of his career both from a motivation standpoint and a health standpoint. I love the way this group thinks and before you doubt them, Friedman has more pennants in Tampa than we have the last 25 years and won 90+ games, in the toughest division in baseball, for 6 straight years with one of the lowest payrolls and his family basically the only ones in attendance.

    1. Grandal has a BAD knee,,,,,just how long do you think he is going to be able to C with a bad knee? And Tampa won how many WS? They won 1 pennant ..which is exactly 1 more than the Dodgers the last 25 years…..not that big a deal

      1. With a team salary of 90 million compared to Dodgers of 220 million, I would call it a big deal that they can be compared to the Dodgers for the last 6 years

        1. well that is your opinion…..which I happen to not agree with……and nor do I give a rats ass……..

          1. look….not everyone is going to agree with either of us….that being said…..what they did in the other front offices they occupied has NO Bearing on what they do here…that is the past…and what worked there may not necessarily work in Los Angeles…This is the Dodgers…not the Rays, or A’s….they are a big market club that the fan base has certain expectations of…….trading your most popular player for a C who hits. .225 is not the way to make fans happy, and trading that guy in your own division is even dumber……and If Kemp plays well the last 5 years of his contract……a distinct possibility, you are going to regret having done that…

          2. I’ve been saying the same thing though…I get they’re here to clean up Colletti’s stupid excuse for contracts…and I like freeing up money, but they don’t have to budget while making budget cuts! They can slash old non performing contracts and use that financial muscle and bring in someone worth while scherzer or shields for instance…why not both…instead we get mccarthy who I would want as a 5th started and an injury project in Brett anderson…he’s been hurt every year since 2010…what the hell are they putting in the water this year that’s going to change that….and you said it perfectly big market team with a fan base that has big expectations…I’m sick of this cutesy shit they’ve been doing this is the dodgers make a move that makes us dangerous

  3. The reason the trade is lagging is because Kemp demanded VIP status in all the San Diego night clubs…

  4. The Dodgers owners are greedy Ive been a fan for 33 years and this is disgusting. Time Warner is evil! The Dodger owners are not for the fans they are in it to feed their own egos, Why would I buy Dodger gear when they can’t even provide games on TV?

  5. First of all I expect they will platoon Grandal at catcher this year with a motivated AJ Ellis, meaning he will play about 90-100 games behind the plate. He also provides protection should AGon end up on the DL for a couple weeks as he plays 1B, bats lefty and has some good power. Next, to say Tampa, which came into existence in 1998 and has about 20% of the resources if not less of the Dodgers, winning a pennant is “not a big deal” is crazy. The Dodgers team last year wasn’t a great team, yes they were 26 games over .500 and 20 of those were games in which Kershaw started. Thus, unless you figure he’s going 21-3 with a sub 2.00 ERA every year, the rest of that crew was 6 games over .500. Why is that, well their bullpen stunk, they were a terrible situational hitting team with runners on 3rd and less than 2 out, they had the lowest average in baseball with the bases loaded and for kickers they are in the top 10 striking out. All those things reared their ugly heads vs a good team in the playoffs. Kemp is one of the most overrated players in baseball because he looks “great”, I mean 6 2″, 225 athletic but he has parlayed 2 great seasons 2009 and 2011 into a reputation that isn’t reality. Hell in 2010 they almost traded him midyear, he hit like .248 for the season. Kemp strikes out over 130x a season annually, he’s a bad defender and he tends to pout when things aren’t going his way. As much as I had to admit this, the SF Giants are the 180 of the Dodgers and that’s why they have won 3 of the last 5 World Series. I mean it’s not like Friedman is breaking up the 1975 Cincinnati Reds here my Lord!

  6. And Emil you left out their organizational depth stunk as evidenced by the fact that they had Correia and Hernandez starting meaningful games for them. This new regime has already improved their overall organizational depth. There is so much more to winning that just assembling stars, your 40 man depth is so important.

  7. By the way, I watch about 145-150 games a year and I keep reading that Kemp was their most popular player yet in the first half of last season he was boo’d many times in Dodger Stadium and loudly. He basically asked to get traded when he was moved to LF which is where he would have had to play this year as he stinks in CF and RF. These guys understand you trade a guy when people overvalue him and you’re pretty comfortable that he can’t duplicate what it is that people perceive his value to be.

  8. Wow, Michael 2 straight division titles with the most expensive team in the league, that’s outstanding! The Giants won 3 of the last 5 world series. Did you ever ask why the team needed to rally from 10 games down when they had $220m invested into the payroll or why they didn’t have a bullpen when they had a $220m payroll? You told the other poster you “watch the games not the stat sheets” yet earlier used Grandal’s .225 batting average to say that he wasn’t good. Apparently you didn’t want him hit the last 2 months of last season as much as you watched your hero Kemp?

  9. Wow, Michael a guy like you might be totally wasting all that talent sitting on a couch and just watching games and knowing who is good . I mean with your large vocabulary and writing skills along with the ability to throw away information that the vast majority of the industry uses, hell I think you have a higher calling my friend.

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