MLB Rumors: Dodgers willing to trade Matt Kemp?

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a roster crunch in the outfield, something that has plagued them for two seasons now given the emergence of Yasiel Puig.

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Prior to the ankle injury to Carl Crawford, skipper Don Mattingly was forced to play musical chairs in the outfield which resulted with either Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier or Crawford sitting on the bench.

The initial thought many had was to trade Ethier, but with an albatross of a contract and sub-par offensive results, teams simply aren’t going to pony up any interest in the veteran. But what about Matt Kemp?

Moving out of center field due to declining defensive skills, Kemp found himself benched for five consecutive games after he was unhappy about the ‘demotion’ leading some to believe the former near MVP could be offered up in trade.

Yahoo’s Jeff Passan seems to believe the Dodgers will explore the idea, though, isn’t sure if any teams will be able to get Los Angeles to eat enough of his $107 million dollars remaining on the final five years of his contract.

“Something must give, and before Carl Crawford’s ankle injury, it was Kemp’s playing time. A $100 million asset doesn’t rot on the bench for long, especially with another outfielder in Joc Pederson destroying Triple-A, so Kemp’s name will be floated over the next two months, and teams will come back with a dollar figure for the Dodgers to eat, and we’ll see if some of the near-$2 billion the Guggenheim group wanted to spend on the Clippers will go toward the dead money that is Kemp.”

With Puig and Pederson the Dodgers outfield of the future, the future of Kemp in Los Angeles looks rather bleak.

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