Just because of the upside. The contract still runs a few years but he won't be OLD by the end - it's just a matter of how 33-34 year old Kemp is holding up.
But we're paying a price similar to what Colorado paid for Cuddyer. I put Prado on the list because he's locked in at 11 mil a year for a couple more years, and that's in range of what we may be able to get Kemp or Ethier for as our price tag. Prado is a .280/.330/.380 hitter this year. He's a .290/.340/.420 hitter career.
Matt Kemp has had his worst seasons the last couple years and is still a .730 OPS hitter with upside to go back and get. Will his busted up body let him do that? I dunno, but we do have a DH spot to give him a rest and enough weird OF pieces to shuffle through to let him have days off. He doesn't have to play 160 games a year.
Kemp seems to be on the upswing again, and is a guy with MVP-level talent. He's not gonna be a CFer full-time, but he's a Josh Hamilton-type talent. Why would I not add a Hamilton-level talent for a couple of minor leaguers and 10-12 million a year? Maybe the Dodgers want us to pay 15 or 17 and we go somewhere else, but for the right discount I would absolutely take Kemp off their hands as the RH star OFer we need to help balance the lineup and help out Cano and Seager.
Jones, Saunders, Cano, Kemp, Seager and Zunino is a nice start to any lineup. Hart or LoMo coming back to help out in place of Smoak or Ackley is even better. And then Choi, Blash, Taylor, Peterson, Kivlehan and Pizzano as various IF and OF options over the next year and a half to improve us further?
Might be able to field an average offense with that...
~G
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