Braves-Dodgers deal highlights GM creativity

It doesn’t take a degree in economics to run a baseball team, but it sure can help these days.

It also doesn’t require good relationships between general managers and sitting down to talk things through multiple times, with give-and-take from both sides, to get a deal done in this era, not when so many transactions are simply consummated via text. But it still helps, especially in complicated deals.

For proof of the above statements, look no further than Saturday’s dizzying salary swap in a five- player trade that sent Matt Kemp and the two remaining years of his onerous contract from the Braves to the Dodgers in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez and his burdensome contract plus pitchers Brandon McCarthy and Scott Kazmir and infielder Charlie Culberson, with the Dodgers also throwing in $4.5 million to even out the overall salaries swapped.

Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos, in his second month on the job after two seasons in the Dodgers front offiffice and six seasons before that as Blue Jays GM, unburdened the Braves of their last reminder of the ill-advised Hector Olivera trade from 2½ years ago.

But this wasn’t about exorcising the demons from the Olivera trade as much as it was about getting rid of fallout that resulted from that original sin, er, deal. That fallout being Kemp.

First, some background before discussing Saturday’s trade: Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi, 41, is a native Canadian who graduated from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dodgers President Andrew Friedman, 41, played baseball at Tulane and earned a degree in management with a concentration in fifinance from Tulane, then worked as an analyst at Bear Stearns for three years before joining the Tampa Bay Rays front offiffice in 2004.

Anthopoulos, 40, has a degree in economics from McMaster University in his native Canada and worked alongside Friedman and Zaidi in the Dodgers’ think tank/front offiffice.

So he knew what the Dodgers needed in terms of space under the luxury tax.

That’s how all these highly educated pals got this complicated deal done after ramping up discussions Wednesday at the winter meetings and finalizing matters once back at their respective offices.

Once Gonzalez agreed to waive his no-trade clause if the Braves would designate him for assignment and then make him a free agent, Braves and Dodgers offifficials put their heads together and came up with a deal that left people around baseball blown away by its creativity and mutually beneficial aspects.

The Dodgers shed more than $48 million in 2018 salary commitments to that quartet they sent to the Braves, all of whom were in the fifinal year of their contracts except Culberson, who will make less than $1 million in 2018 and has four years of team control.

Swapping those four guys for two years of Kemp allowed L.A. to put itself in position to stay under the $197 million luxury-tax threshold for next season, which will save many millions.

Meanwhile, the Braves took on nearly $30 million in additional payroll, which doesn’t leave them with much more to spend this winter, but gives them a lot more payroll flexibility in 2019, when they intend to fifield a contender and will be better positioned to look at that freeagent pool and/or trade for player(s) with high salaries.

The Braves didn’t add a big-time free agent or trade for a top performer, but with Saturday’s deal Anthopoulos took care of a lot of issues in his fifirst signifificant transaction and he showed Saturday why the Brave entrusted him with the keys.