At this point, I'll believe Jake Odorizzi is headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers when he takes the mound at Dodger Stadium. Or maybe not until he throws his first pitch in Dodger blue.
It's been that kind of offseason for the Dodgers, but as my friend Ken Rosenthal wrote the other day on Fox Sports, there's plenty of time and plenty of players left out there to turn a terrible winter into a good one. A trade for Odorizzi, who was once compared to Zack Greinke and was later traded for him, wouldn't be a bad place to start.
Sure enough, soon after the news broke Thursday that the Hisashi Iwakuma free-agent signing could fall apart because of a failed physical, there was this tweet from Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:
Odorizzi is 25, so he's a fit on a Dodger team that seems at least as interested in building for the future as in winning now. He finished in the top 10 in the American League in ERA in 2015 (3.35), so he's a definite upgrade in a Dodger rotation that still basically consists of Clayton Kershaw and four question marks.
He spent a month on the disabled list last summer, so he's a fit there, too.
Sorry, cheap shot. But remember, the Dodgers' latest stumble was Iwakuma's failed physical (first reported by Japan's Jiji Press, h/t Kazuto Yamazaki), which at least for now has scuttled the three-year, $45 million contract he agreed to last week.
Iwakuma was the pitcher the Dodgers signed after Greinke surprised everyone by signing with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Dodgers responded by doing the deal with Iwakuma and agreeing to a trade for Aroldis Chapman—which also didn't get done, after news broke of a domestic violence allegation.
So they lost their co-ace to a team that no one knew was even bidding, and they responded by making a trade that had to be called off and a free-agent signing that either won't go through or may need to be reworked.
Meanwhile, their National League West rivals have added Greinke and Shelby Miller (Diamondbacks), and Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija (San Francisco Giants).
Oh, but the Dodgers have got plenty of prospects, which is nice when you're rebuilding. The Dodgers, with their huge market and huge payroll and huge expectations, aren't supposed to be rebuilding.
To win in 2016, they're going to need to deal some of those prospects for some established major league talent.
As my buddy Anthony Witrado wrote here Wednesday, the big move would be to go after an ace like Jose Fernandez of the Miami Marlins or Sonny Gray of the Oakland A's. But getting either one of those guys isn't going to be easy, even with all the prospects the Dodgers have stockpiled. Remember, when the Marlins talked about a Fernandez trade with the Diamondbacks, they demanded a quality major league starter (Patrick Corbin) in addition to a bunch of elite prospects, according to Joe Frisaro of MLB.com.
Odorizzi won't come cheap, but it shouldn't take as much to get him as it would to acquire Fernandez or Gray. Besides, with the Dodgers' rotation need and their prospect base, maybe they can or should get two of them.
Perhaps they could rework their scuttled deal with Iwakuma, as Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times suggested on Twitter:
A trade for Odorizzi makes even more sense, and not just because Dodgers boss Andrew Friedman was the guy who made the trade that brought Odorizzi to the Tampa Bay Rays in December 2012. That was the deal known then as James Shields for Wil Myers, but better remembered now as Wade Davis for Jake Odorizzi.
Odorizzi still isn't Greinke (who went to the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2010 trade that sent Odorizzi to the Kansas City Royals), but he developed last spring and summer into a very effective major league pitcher. The Rays wouldn't think about trading him, except that they're the Rays and don't have enough money and are talking about trading almost everyone.
He's definitely available, and because the Rays don't have real hopes of contending in 2016, they'd no doubt be happy to move him for some of those Dodger prospects.
There's a deal to be made that makes sense for both sides—maybe even one the Dodgers could actually finish.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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