Brandon McCarthy is now officially a Dodger.

Eccentric set-up man Brian Wilson is not.

During a twenty minute telephonic press conference on Tuesday morning, Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi confirmed that 31-year-old McCarthy successfully passed his physical and that his four-year / $48 million contract is now a done deal. McCarthy will receive a $6 million signing bonus, $11 million per year in 2015 and 2016 and $10 million per year in 2017 and 2018.

Obviously the biggest concern in the deal, at least for Dodger fans, is McCarthy’s somewhat lengthy injury history – something that Zaidi said is of little concern for he and Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman.

“We did our due diligence,” Zaidi said. “We feel good about the change in his off-season workout. He has improved upper-body strength, he crossed the 200-inning threshold this year, he added two miles an hour to his fastball and those for us were very encouraging facts.”

McCarthy, who is very active on Twitter, Photoshopped his Twitter avatar (poorly, I might add), which clearly shows his great sense of humor. (Image courtesy of @BMcCarthy32)

McCarthy followed Zaidi’s press conference with one of his own and acknowledged that it was indeed a change in his workout program that led to his healthy 2014 season. McCarthy was 7-5 with an excellent 2.89 ERA in his 14 starts after his July 6 trade from the Diamondbacks to the Yankees. He threw a combined total of exactly 200.0 innings for the first time in his nine-year MLB career.

“We added in a lot more weightlifting, the kind of things that in the past have been not taboo but generally kind of frowned upon by most baseball workouts for pitching,” said McCarthy. “We started adding heavy lifting with weight in the shoulder and the upper body, especially the back, and just trying to get it generally strong as I possibly could.

“It was stuff that I dabbled in in the past but not full-on and not to the level that we committed to now,” McCarthy added. “It’s lifting heavy, it’s lifting often and then really mixing in proper rest so that when I do go to lift, I can get everything I need out of it. It’s just trying to become a bigger, stronger person was really the main goal”

To make room for McCarthy on the 25-man (and 40-man) roster, the Dodgers designated struggling former closer Brain Wilson – a move that came as a bit of a surprised because of Wilson’s lofty salary but wasn’t completely unexpected.

“This is obviously something that we’ve been discussing in the context of the 40-man [roster] over the last few days, not with just this move but with some moves coming down the pipe,” Zaidi said. “I think that with most of the additions we’ve made, bringing in Peralta, Nicasio, Hatcher, we just felt like sort of particularly served right-handed relievers; we had depth and some options we were comfortable with. In that sense there was a little bit of a surplus.

“For us the contract is the contract,” Zaidi added. “We don’t want to be sort of tied down by financial obligations, we’re just trying to build the best team we can, to develop the team.”

When asked if Wilson’s often-criticized clubhouse presence had anything to do with their decision to release him, Zaidi walked a fine line to skate the issue.

“Look, here’s the reality – every move we make is about putting the best team on the field for 2015,” Zaidi said. “And at this point we just didn’t feel he was one of the best seven reliever options we had, and that was sort of the first and foremost consideration.”

Wilson wasn’t always the consummate teammate, occasionally showing displeasure when his teammates made an error – this despite his own frequent shortcomings.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

As for the Dodgers plans to try to move Wilson, Zaidi said that they have been in discussion with several other teams but nothing formal.

“We’ve had some conversations with other clubs leading up to this,” said Zaidi. “Obviously he’s been designated, if there’s interest out there, a deal, I’m sure we’ll hear from other clubs. We have a few days to sort that out.”

So what is Zaidi’s overall opinion of the near complete makeover of the team thus far?

“We’re about creating a more balanced roster, one through twenty-five,” said the Dodgers GM. “On the defensive side of the ball I do think that we’ve upgraded the team significantly defensively and that’s important for us … Having a strong defense, especially up the middle, is something that we prioritized.”

If you think that Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi are done wheeling and dealing this off-season, you might want to reconsider. If these two guys have taught us anything, they have taught us to expect the unexpected.