Dodgers Insider Strongly Believes Aaron Judge Will Not End Up In Los Angeles

Aaron Judge is perhaps the biggest name on the free-agent market this offseason, and as such, he's been linked to the Dodgers. Every big free agent gets linked to the Dodgers at some point, to make sure whoever ends up signing him pays top dollar. Of course, to make the Judge-to-Dodgers narrative stick, people have had to come up with ridiculously unrealistic ideas like moving six-time Gold Glove winner Mookie Betts from right field to second base.

Dodgers beat writer Bill Plunkett was on MLB Network recently and assessed the chances of Judge ending up in L.A.

"I think the Dodgers will make a run at every free agent who comes out on the market, but I don't think they will be where he ends up. I think the Mets, Giants and Yankees are going to be more motivated as far as paying him what he wants. I don't see the Dodgers going to the same lengths that they did when signing Mookie Betts. That's kind of the contract he's going to be looking for.

"Will they be on the fringes of the discussions? Will they be opportunistic if things fall their way? Absolutely, that's their M.O. A year this time did they think they were going to get Freddie Freeman? Probably not. Three years ago, did they think they were going to get Mookie Betts. I don't think we were talking about that, but they end up with these big names somehow sometimes."

This seems right. The Dodgers ended up with Freeman because the Braves refused to meet his demands, not because L.A. aggressively outbid Atlanta. Judge likely hit the market looking for nine or ten years; if things develop to the point that he's only going to get five or six, maybe they swoop in and offer a higher AAV on that shorter deal.

But chances are, Judge will get at least seven years, and it's hard to see Los Angeles really being in on that.