Since the net salary exchange here is neutral, this trade seems to work out for both teams based on this "exchange":
- Braves get to completely front load their dead money side of this swap in 2018. When the sun came up this morning, they had $18m of dead money in 2019, and now they have zero.
- Braves get a ~2 WAR veteran SP that they were going to be pursuing anyway at a reasonable rate.
- The Dodgers end up looking like obvious losers on the salary and player exchange, but they save a ton of overall money because their luxury tax overage percentage goes form 50% to 20% this year.
So in a sense, the Braves are able to get a great deal here because of the Dodger's luxury tax situation. One way to think about it is the Dodgers split the value of the luxury tax savings with the Braves, and the Braves side of the split came in the two perks noted above . . . while the Dodgers half is pure money.