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Dodgers to pay Padres $18M in 2015

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The Padres’ payroll had appeared headed north of $100 million, but a new piece of information Monday tapped the brakes, if only slightly, on that projection.

The Dodgers will pay the Padres $18 million next season as part of the $32 million they agreed to send along with outfielder Matt Kemp in last week’s trade, a source confirmed to the U-T.

According to the Associated Press, which first reported the terms of the payment structure, the Dodgers will give the Padres six $3 million installments in 2015, payable on the first of each month during the regular season.

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In each of the following four seasons, the Dodgers will owe the Padres $3.5 million, $600,000 on the first of each month from April through August and $500,000 on Sept. 1.

It had previously been speculated that the Dodgers would pay the Padres $6.4 million annually over the remaining five years and $107 million on Kemp’s contract.

Kemp is owed $21 million in 2015, $21.5 million in each of the next four years. Thus, the Padres would effectively pay him $3 million next year and $18 million in each successive year.

That leaves the Padres with approximately $62 million in commitments for 2015. Add what will be owed to arbitration-eligible players, and that number could rise to the $87 million range, based on projections by MLBTradeRumors.com.

The Padres set a franchise record for opening-day payroll last season, at roughly $90 million. Their final payroll for 2014 was $85,467,063, which ranked 25th out of 30 clubs.

Of course, the Padres’ owners have shown an unprecedented willingness to spend in their first offseason under General Manager A.J. Preller. The five-year, $75 million obligation to Kemp still represents the largest in club history. Fellow Padres newcomer Justin Upton will make $14.5 million -- a sum indirectly covered by the Dodgers -- in his final year before free agency.

In an email late Monday, Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler confirmed the Dodgers’ front-loading for Kemp, adding, “That is one of the reasons we went after Upton for 2015.”

At Kemp’s introductory press conference Friday, Preller said, “I know in August when I took this job there were a lot of questions about how committed ownership and the franchise were going to be. Today is a great day for the Padres, the city of San Diego. Ownership has shown it clearly wants to win.”

For the Padres, who have stockpiled at least seven big-league outfielders, more movement is on the horizon. And, in light of the Dodgers’ payment structure, they may have even grander designs for 2015 than previously thought.

Earlier Monday, Fowler told the U-T that there are “additional moves to come” and he was “not comfortable setting a definitive (payroll) number.”

Could the Padres make a serious run at trading for Phillies left-hander Cole Hamels, a San Diego native who could put their rotation over the top? Hamels is a target for a number of other teams, some of them pitching-hungrier than the Padres, and the 30-year-old is owed a minimum of $96 million over the next four seasons.

But compared to other elite salaries, that is not an unreasonable salary. Plus, Hamels does not have the Padres on his no-trade list. What the Padres might have to give up for a player of his caliber is another question.

Sources within the organization on Monday again indicated that the Padres do not intend to flip newly acquired outfielder Wil Myers in a potential trade for Hamels.

During an interview on the Mighty 1090 Monday morning, Fowler said he “couldn’t be more pleased with the offseason, but now it’s a matter of getting the pieces in place.” He later added: “We know we have too many outfielders. We know we have to make some changes.”

Of Preller, Fowler said, “He felt with the starting pitching, if we added some offense, we had a good chance to take a run at it this year. He set out to do that, and he had a number of ideas. Frankly, these have been percolating for a time. ... I said, OK, let’s go do it. If you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly.”

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