The Dodgers essentially paid $2.75 million for a competitive balance draft pick - MLB

This is fun.

On Thursday the Dodgers acquired reliever Ryan Webb from the Orioles along with a minor league catcher and competitive balance draft pick. In exchange the Dodgers sent righty Ben Rowen and minor league catcher Chris O’Brien to Baltimore and agreed to pick up Webb’s entire $2.75 million salary for 2015.

Over the weekend they outrighted Webb to Oklahoma City. Today they just released him. Which means that, minor league spare parts aside, the Dodgers basically just decided to pay $2.75 million for a competitive balance draft pick. The 74th overall pick in this year’s draft. They will also get over $800K in draft pool money since they have that extra pick.

Knock a few bucks off that for the minor league pieces, I guess, but even after doing that you’re forced to conclude, I think, that the Dodgers bought a draft pick.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.