How Dodgers landed Edwin Díaz — and finally found

At the start of the winter, the idea was that top free-agent nearer Edwin Díaz would fall out of the Dodgers’ most well-liked price vary.

Knowing they needed bullpen help, however, the Dodgers determined to attain out with curiosity anyway.

What adopted will go down as one of the most shocking outcomes of this MLB offseason. And, for the Dodgers, their latest in a string of big-name, star-player acquisitions.

Even though the Dodgers initially had doubts about their probabilities of touchdown Díaz — particularly on the type of comparatively shorter-term deal they have been looking for in their hunt for aid help — circumstances modified, Díaz’s market developed, and they went from darkish horse to front-runner.

On Friday, it all culminated in a Dodger Stadium news convention, the once-unexpected union between the two-time defending champions and three-time All-Star right-hander being made official as Díaz’s three-year, $69-million contract was finalized.

“It wasn’t easy,” Díaz said of his free agent course of, which ended with him leaving the New York Mets after a adorned seven-year stint. “I spent seven years in New York. They treated me really good. They treated me great. But I chose the Dodgers because they are a winning organization. I’m looking to win, and I think they have everything to win. So picking the Dodgers was pretty easy.”

That didn’t imply it got here as any less of a shock.

Early on this winter, the Dodgers signaled a hesitancy to hand out another long-term contract to a reliever, after watching Tanner Scott wrestle in the first season of the four-year, $72-million deal he signed last winter.

And though they progressively grew more open to the concept, giving critical consideration to Devin Williams before he signed a three-year, $51-million deal with the Mets two weeks in the past, the thought of touchdown Díaz appeared far-fetched.

After all, the 31-year-old was widely anticipated to obtain a four- or five-year deal, having already opted out of the remaining two seasons on his record-breaking five-year, $102-million contract with the Mets to grow to be a free agent this winter. Also, since he had turned down a qualifying offer from the Mets at the start of the offseason, the Dodgers knew they’d lose two draft picks (their second- and fifth-highest alternatives) to signal him.

“We checked in from the get-go,” basic supervisor Brandon Gomes said. But, he acknowledged, “the opportunity to add somebody of this caliber to what’s already a really talented bullpen was something that we weren’t sure was going to be able to actually come to fruition.”

Turned out, a few components have been working in the Dodgers’ favor.

First, the Mets weren’t keen to give Díaz a longer-term deal, either. Instead, in the wake of the Williams signing, they have been reportedly offering only three years for a related wage as the Dodgers. Not coincidentally, it was only getting into last week’s winter conferences — mere days after Williams’ Dec. 3 settlement with the Mets — that Gomes said talks began to intensify.

“Having those conversations and making sure you’re in there and [letting him know], ‘Hey, we’re really valuing you, and if things make sense on your end, great, we’re here’ — that was the biggest thing,” Gomes said. “Making sure you’re exploring all avenues, because you don’t know how things are gonna play out.”

Another benefit for the Dodgers: They had advocates close to Díaz vouching for the group.

Díaz said he obtained rave reviews about the membership from both his brother Alexis (who spent most of last 12 months with the Dodgers, after they acquired him from Cincinnati following an early-season demotion to the minors) and his Team Puerto Rico teammate Kiké Hernández (a longtime Dodgers fan favourite who is at the moment a free agent).

“They treat every single player the same,” Díaz said of the message he obtained. “That’s really nice, [especially] knowing they have a lot of great players, future Hall of Fame players. … That’s really good. That’s how a winning clubhouse is.”

Ultimately, it all led up to a somewhat swift signing course of on Tuesday morning, one in which the Dodgers gave Díaz the best average annual wage for a reliever in MLB historical past ($23 million per 12 months) but stored the phrases to three years and have been in a position to defer more than $13 million of the full guarantee.

“I think once Devin came off the board, it was like, ‘OK, let’s continue to explore the different options,’” Gomes said. “Obviously having no idea what conversations had gone on up to that point between Edwin and other clubs, it was more about: ‘Hey, we’re here if there’s something that makes sense. And we would love to have you join our group.’ And fortunately enough, everybody’s interests were aligned on that.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t play the game of assumptions, and just do the due diligence on the front end,” Gomes added. “Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. But having those conversations and making sure you’re doing the work that’s needed to really understand the situation is important, especially when you see situations like this play out.”

Now, the Dodgers will put their religion in Díaz to play a main position in their quest for a World Series three-peat.

He would be the membership’s designated nearer — a position they’ve been hesitant to bestow upon any one reliever since the departure of Kenley Jansen (the only MLB reliever with more saves than Díaz since his debut in 2016).

“For us, we have a high bar. To name someone the closer, you have to be one of the best. You have to be elite and dominant at what you do,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.

The group’s expectation is that his presence will elevate the remainder of the bullpen, too, giving a more outlined late-game construction to a aid corps that ranks just twenty first in the majors in ERA last season.

“It allows Doc and our coaching staff to kind of put guys into spots leading up to that,” Gomes said, “knowing that it doesn’t really matter who’s in the ninth, that we’re gonna like the matchup.”

Perhaps the largest news from Friday’s introduction: Díaz still plans to enter video games to his iconic walk-out tune, “Narco” by Timmy Trumpet — which Gomes described as “probably the most electric walkout song in the game.”

“I can’t wait, the first game of the season, coming in the ninth with Timmy Trumpets and getting the W for the Dodgers,” Díaz said.

A few weeks in the past, that scene felt like an unlikely imaginative and prescient.

But now, anytime the sounds of trumpets echo around Chavez Ravine in the summers to come, they may serve as a reminder of the group’s latest free-agent coup; one more sudden than virtually all the remainder.