Dodgers' Dramatic Late Show Now Headlined by Matt Kemp Blockbuster

SAN DIEGO - It was 11:57 p.m., midnight about to strike on one of the most frenzied days of trading one club has conducted at the winter meetings in decades, and who couldn't use a chuckle?

'We're going to continue to focus on how we can continue to improve our roster,' new Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.

Yeah, and the sharks on Wall Street are going to continue chomping through everything in their path.

Following a Wednesday on which they made three trades, were reported to have agreed to terms with free agent pitcher Brandon McCarthy, acquired a young pitcher from the Marlins and then traded him within an hour and moved a total of 12 players (including that young pitcher twice, coming and going), a shockingly reconstructed Dodgers team was still far from done.

A blockbuster Matt Kemp trade to San Diego is almost done and is expected to be formalized by week's end, a source with knowledge of the talks told Bleacher Report early Thursday morning as the Grand Hyatt lobby bars closed and the baseball industry drifted off to bed, wary of sleeping for fear of missing more Dodgers moves. The Kemp deal could be completed as early as Thursday, possibly on Friday.

It is a sweeping and stunning retooling of a Dodgers team that has won two consecutive NL West titles...but failed to play in even one World Series.

The Dodgers today have a new shortstop in former National League MVP Jimmy Rollins, thanks to an afternoon agreement to a deal with Philadelphia. That trade is not yet official and, as such, Friedman would not address it directly.

They have a new second baseman in All-Star Howie Kendrick, thanks to an evening deal with the Los Angeles Angels for young starter Andrew Heaney.

They have three young prospects, acquired from the Marlins for shortstop Dee Gordon and starter Dan Haren, that either will add depth to their farm system or be useful as trade chips should they go after Philadelphia ace Cole Hamels.

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Talk about smelling blood. The Dodgers were ruthless. They were thorough. They were creative and consistent in systematically executing a bold new plan that either is going to be hailed as genius or cursed as egregious. There is no room left for in-betweens.

'Obviously, we traded away some really good players tonight in Dee Gordon and Dan Haren and Miguel Rojas,' Friedman said. 'We feel in totality that the moves we made made outselves a better team.

'Adding Howie Kendrick, we felt, fits us incredibly well. He's a right-handed bat, a tremendous hitter. And the young players we got, we felt in the totality of it, that we made ourselves a better team.'

It seemed like every 30 minutes or so, the Dodgers were blowing up another part of their roster. As Wednesday afternoon dissolved into Wednesday evening, the deals seemed to arrive every 30 minutes, one after another, like new episodes of Friends reruns on late-night TBS.

Even at that, Friedman said that the Dodgers planned to add two starting pitchers. McCarthy, who reportedly agreed to a four-year, $48 million deal, clearly is one. The other? Could be Hamels. Could be free agent James Shields.

Or, perhaps the Dodgers will divert some of the cash they will save in a Kemp deal toward free agent right-hander Max Scherzer.

Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Clearly, anything is possible with this new blue crew. Friedman was installed as president of baseball operations two months ago.

He quickly moved to hire Farhan Zaidi, formerly Billy Beane's right-hand man in Oakland, as Dodgers general manager.

He added Josh Byrnes, former GM of both the Padres and Diamondbacks, as senior vice-president of baseball operations.

Now, you wonder if it is Byrnes' knowledge of the Padres system driving home the Kemp deal. The Padres, according to sources, will send catcher Yasmani Grandal to the Dodgers in return, along with two pitchers: right-hander Joe Wieland and a pitching prospect, likely Zach Eflin. They also will receive catcher Andy Federowicz from the Dodgers along with Kemp.

It was Byrnes who acquired Grandal for the Padres when he was San Diego GM in a five-player trade with Cincinnati in 2011. Eflin was drafted in the first round in 2012, also when Byrnes was the GM.

Meantime, Logan White, a senior advisor to Padres' GM A.J. Preller, is the former Dodgers' scouting director and was in that position when the club drafted Kemp in the sixth round of the 2003 draft.

Kemp is owed $106 million over the next five seasons, the remaining portion of his eight-year, $160-million deal. It is expected the Dodgers will include roughly $30 million in the deal to defray part of Kemp's contract.

Friedman was neither commenting on nor acknowledging the impending Kemp deal after Wednesday's flurry of moves.

'We have a lot of conversations still going on,' Friedman said. 'A phone call can change things. As we've talked about the past few days...we didn't necessarily expect this all to come together today.

'We've had a tremendous amount of conversations with teams and various agents.'

He did acknowledge that the Dodgers are 'still trying to figure someone out behind the plate to pair with A.J.' Ellis. Grandal, a better hitter than Ellis, will pair nicely with him.

Clearly, part of this restructuring is meant to create a better clubhouse atmosphere as well, which will make manager Don Mattingly's job a little more baseball and a little less psychologist/babysitter. With the overload in the outfield last summer and with flamboyant personalities like Hanley Ramirez and Yasiel Puig, Mattingly spent plenty of time behind the scenes last summer diffusing drama.

Kendrick's right-handed bat will help replace the power that will go away with Kemp, and he will be far lower maintenance in the clubhouse than some of last year's characters.

Denis Poroy/Getty Images

'Howie is really good on both sides of the ball,' Friedman said. 'He's a really good defender. He's good bat to the ball, we feel, and his right-center approach fits incredibly well in Dodger Stadium. And we feel like he's going to fit in really well in the clubhouse.'

It would have been a dizzying day for any club, let alone a club coming off of a 94-68 season.

'Obviously, we started this offseason with a really good base of talent in place, coming off of an extremely successful NL West division championship,' Friedman said. 'As we looked at different ways to improve the roster, we felt there were certain things we could target and certain guys who could fit within the scope of what we were trying to do.'

It was, at times, a comical day, as evidenced by this tweet from Heaney, who was a Dodger for all of, what, maybe 60 minutes or so:

Well, @Dodgers we had a good run! Great to be a part of such a storied franchise. #thanksforthememories

- Andrew Heaney (@Heandog8) December 11, 2014

But mostly, it was a day that will go down in Dodgers history either as the jump-start toward accomplishing what the Kemp/Ramirez/Clayton Kershaw clubs of the past two years couldn't, winning their first World Series since 1988, or as the dynamiting of something that shouldn't have been blown up in the first place.

The feeling here is, the former. The Dodgers had two great chances to reach the World Series the past two seasons, and they just couldn't do it. The next step had to be either new ideas, or regression.

'This is what we should do from now on,' club president Stan Kasten joked to Friedman on their way out of the room following their late-night press conference. 'Midnight press conferences.

'We'll put 'em to sleep. Perfect.'

No chance of that. Sleep clearly is not an option around these new Dodgers.

We might miss something.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.

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