If you are into technicalities – and let’s face it, if you are a serious baseball fan, you undoubtedly are – former Boston Red Sox right-hander Joe Kelly is technically not a Dodger yet.

Oh sure, everything is pretty much set and according the Baseball Prospectus’ extremely popular Cot’s Baseball Contracts website, it’s a done deal. But until Kelly is officially added to the Dodgers 40-man, and more importantly the 25-man roster, he is just another brick in the wall, as Pink Floyd might say.

Obviously this is splitting hairs and Kelly is as much a Dodger as are Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger, and everyone else currently in the Dodgers organization. It’s just that a corresponding move will be required to get the 30-year-old Anaheim, California native (and presumably a few others) on the 40-man and 25-man rosters before the Dodgers break spring training camp on March 27, 2019.

Shortly after the signing was announced, Kelly was interviewed on Boston radio station WEEI. When asked if there was a moment when he realized that he would not be returning to the 2018 World Series champion Red Sox, the hard-throwing right-hander said this:

“I  don’t know if there was one moment. Besides, this was the team I wanted to play for, this was the team that gave me a three-year deal, $25 million.

“There wasn’t writing on the wall before that. It was, ‘Here’s a three-year deal,’ and no other team was at the three-year mark. There were other teams in, but no other teams were at the three-year mark.

“I was already really, really involved with speaking with LA and understanding the philosophies and was already intrigued. So if you want a moment, that was probably it.

“If there was another team involved, this was the closest to staying with the team I won a World Series with.”

Like him or not, especially after he effectively took out former Dodger Hanley Ramirez from the 2013 National League Championship Series when he (apparently intentionally) hit Ramirez in the ribs with a 95-MPH fastball that broke one of them, Kelly brings an old-school (at least for those of us old enough to remember) Don Drysdale-esque intimidation factor to a team that once thrived on such but has been seriously lacking for half a century.

…and how can you absolutely not love that about him”

Play Ball!