On days like Saturday, when the second-biggest leviathan in baseball wheedled its way into next offseason’s free agent frenzy with a touch of accounting magic, and in months like December, when the largest monster of all offered up a bag of magic beans and in return snagged the reigning National League MVP, it’s entirely fair for those sandwiched between the coasts to throw up their hands like an emoji shrug come to life and curse the sport down to its tawdry soul. This game, man. It can break your heart even in the cold of winter.

Only baseball can offer a trade of five players in which none of them really matters. When the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday foisted Adrian Gonzalez, Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, Charlie Culberson and some cash on the Atlanta Braves for Matt Kemp – whom the Dodgers had dumped three years ago on San Diego, which eventually dumped him on the Braves, precipitating this triangle of dumps – they were nothing but contracts, numbers, conduits to the real purpose of the deal: The Dodgers’ low-key right-swiping Bryce Harper.

That happened in the aftermath of the New York Yankees pickpocketing Giancarlo Stanton from the Miami Marlins pretty much because they can, and the roars and the cries and the caterwauls for baseball to adopt a salary cap started anew. Which didn’t register as altogether logical, seeing as these moves by the Dodgers and Yankees actually were part of plans for each to dip their payrolls beneath $200 million this season in spite of annual revenues that creep toward an estimated half-billion dollars annually.

When one remembers the complexities of baseball, it starts to make a little more sense. The goal of getting under the luxury-tax threshold of $197 million this season is to immunize both teams from severe penalties when they exceed it in future years. Make no mistake, that excess is coming. The 2017-18 offseason is both teams recognizing their ability to weaponize financial advantages going forward. The 2018-19 offseason will be them emptying both barrels.

View photos PHOENIX, AZ – JULY 25: Matt Kemp #27 of the Atlanta Braves prepares for a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on July 25, 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Getty Images) More

To understand how this works, and why Saturday’s trade matters even if the players don’t, one must first get a handle on Major League Baseball’s financial strictures. The luxury tax – known throughout the game as the competitive-balance tax, or the CBT – is MLB’s first line of defense in trying to limit spending in an uncapped sport. Its floor increases slightly each season. The Dodgers have exceeded it the last five seasons. The Yankees have paid the CBT all 15 years of its current incarnation.

As such, both teams are taxed at a higher rate. By dipping beneath 2018’s $197 million mark – a number that includes the average annual value of all 25-man roster players’ contracts, the salaries of the 15 others on the 40-man roster, any money sent to other teams to facilitate trades, awards bonuses and about $13.5 million in benefits – the Dodgers and Yankees could reset their numbers from 50 percent-plus on overages to as low as 20 percent.

Perhaps it’s a bit much to say going under the CBT threshold will convince the Dodgers and Yankees to pursue Harper and Manny Machado, among dozens of other free agents in arguably the greatest class ever, come November 2018. Even if they can’t pull off the gambit, that won’t stop the thirst. Savings that can be in the tens of millions of dollars is nice. It just doesn’t stand in the way of a super-team.

Still, to see the effect, imagine the Dodgers carrying two different payrolls in the 2019 season: $250 million and $275 million. If the Dodgers can reset this year, the taxes on those salaries in 2019 would be levied as such: 20 percent for every dollar between $206 million (the new CBT threshold) and $226 million; 32 percent for every dollar between $226 million and $246 million; and 62.5 percent for every dollar above $246 million. The total tax on a $250 million payroll: $12.9 million. And for a $275 million payroll: $28.5 million.

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