Consider that James Loney made over $7 million last year in a contract he got via arbitration– i.e. decided by an arbiter who is using market trends to decide a final number. Baseball salaries are not like our salaries. With the absurd valuation of sports franchises like the Dodgers ($2.4 billion) and the Browns ($900 million for controlling share) the suggestion is to stop making assumptions about what folks are really worth in the open market.

I don’t like assuming another team’s mistake(s). See (Wells, Vernon). If Crawford and Beckett were on the open market today, neither one would get close to what their current contracts owe them. One could argue that the net loser in the Red Sox – Dodgers deal was the Yankees. When a division rival gets relieved of a quarter billion in regrettable contracts, it functions as a badly needed push of the reset button.

I also would have let Ethier walk. He had a disporportionate amount of AB’s among lefties last year because his futility against them basically assures the fact that opposing managers will save a situational lefty to face Ethier in crucial late game AB’s.

As for Boras, he knows what clubs will be spending money in the near future. It’s his job to know. It’s Coletti’s job to not get snookered again like he did last August.

However….I don’t see any reason to think that the Dodgers are going to spend money wisely. The way over spent on a solid but not great reliever. They gave up great prospects and took on all but $12 of the Beckett/Gonzalez/Crawford contracts….and the only one with any chance whatsoever of not being a horrible deal is the Gonzalez one….the best that can happen there is that he’s worth the money. They also picked up a quickly declining Hanley Ramirez whose defense has always been horrible and is getting worse….he’ll be paid $31.5M over the next 2 years. The Eithier contract is an overpay, and Kemp is being paid a hefty sum as well (though he may actually be worth it if he can stay healthy). That is a lot of money for players that don’t represent much above league average in terms of production.

Capping things off, they kept Ned Colletti…who seems to have no idea what he’s doing after riding (and trading away) the quality farm system built by the previous GM.

You want to get on the Dodgers? Do it for 2013. Knock yourselves out. But don’t evaluate a “failure” in 2012 (last team knocked out of the playoff race even though that’s nothing special because the playoffs no consist of 14 teams) with the amount to be spent in 2013.