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The Los Angeles Dodgers spent nearly $1.5 billion on players between 2013 and 2018, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts. That's roughly $250 million per year.

But even after two straight near-misses in the World Series, the Dodgers suddenly seem oddly frugal. It could cost them a shot at 26-year-old superstar Bryce Harper.

Harper and the Dodgers have gone together in offseason rumors like C-3PO and R2-D2 in the Star Wars saga. Los Angeles may even be Harper's preferred destination. According to ESPN.com's Alden Gonzalez, the 2015 National League MVP "badly wants to be a Dodger."

According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, however, the Dodgers are interested in Harper only if they can get him for less than a "long-term, record-setting contract." As in: nothing like the $400 million megadeal Harper and agent Scott Boras have in mind, per Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post.

It's also been speculated—notably by ESPN.com's Buster Olney—that the Dodgers will only spring for Harper if they can clear payroll first. Perhaps by trading Matt Kemp (who's owed $18.3 million by the Dodgers in 2019), Rich Hill ($18.7 million), Yasiel Puig (projected at $11.3 million), Alex Wood (projected at $9 million) and/or Joc Pederson (projected at $4.3 million).

Perhaps the Dodgers are taking a cost-conscious approach to the Harper sweepstakes because they aren't over the moon with his potential. That's not an entirely irrational conclusion. He's to this winter's market what Alex Rodriguez was to the 2000-01 market, minus the consistent MVP-caliber production.

Then again, this is a guy with 184 career home runs and a .900 OPS, and who peaked with a 1.109 OPS, 42 homers and 10 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference. Put another way: Harper is generally quite good, and he can be unstoppable.

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Hence the alternative explanation: Maybe the Dodgers are simply committed to pinching pennies.

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Relative to what came before—i.e. megadeals for Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Andre Ethier and such salary dump trades as the Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett deal—under general manager Ned Colletti, the Dodgers have been more restrained since hiring Andrew Friedman in 2014. Kenley Jansen's five-year, $80 million contract represents Friedman's peak expense in free agency.

"There's not a hard-and-fast rule," Friedman told Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post in February. "But if you look back over time, there are a lot more free-agent contracts that haven't worked out than have."

Still, it wasn't until this year that the Dodgers' payroll took a relative nosedive. They finished with a payroll under $200 million for the first time since 2012.

On one bright side, the payroll crunch kept the Dodgers neither from their sixth straight National League West title nor from their second straight National League pennant. On another, it also got them under the luxury tax threshold, thereby resetting their baseline tax on overages.

From the outside looking in, the whole idea in doing so was to maximize the team's future spending power. According to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, however, the Dodgers may have it in mind to avoid the luxury tax every year through 2022.

If true, it's somewhat understandable. Per the Associated Press, the luxury tax cost the Dodgers nearly $150 million between 2013 and 2017. Starting in 2018, the penalties for going over include higher tax rates and lowered draft picks.

But while this may sound like a mountain in the way of the Dodgers breaking the bank again, the Boston Red Sox can vouch that it's really more of a molehill.

They crossed the $197 million luxury tax threshold by more than $40 million in 2018, thereby triggering the harshest penalties. And yet, all they got was a $12 million bill and their top 2019 draft pick moved down 10 spaces from No. 33. Given that they're fresh off winning 108 regular-season games and the World Series, they're presumably not about to kick themselves over this.

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The Dodgers are in a position to also find themselves shrugging when their 2019 bill comes due.

They're already projected to be slightly over the $206 million threshold, according to Roster Resource. As Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports noted, the Dodgers could climb as high as $250 million and only be hit with a $12.2 million penalty. There would also be the lowered draft pick, but what's an extra 10 spots if you're already at the low end of the first round?

If it's paying the price year after year that really scares the Dodgers, well, no problem.

There's barely over $80 million in guaranteed money on their 2020 books and barely over $60 million for 2021. After that, only Kenta Maeda is guaranteed anything. Even if they splurge this winter, they have clear avenues to possibly maneuver back under the luxury tax threshold in 2020 or 2021.

All this is to say nothing about the elephant in the room that is the team's obscene wealth. The Dodgers are valued at $3 billion, according to Forbes, and their $8 billion local TV contract and NL-best attendance are just two revenue streams that contributed to a total take of more than $500 million in 2017.

Ultimately, there's no question as to whether the Dodgers can afford Harper. They can. And while there's room for debate over whether they need him, there's none over how good they'd look with him.

The Dodgers are already the obvious favorites to win the NL West in 2019. Per the early projections at FanGraphs, they're also the team to beat in the entire National League. The merely good version of Harper would sideline any lingering doubts about that. The unstoppable version of him would cast those doubts into the sun.

If it's the years that scare the Dodgers more than the dollars, there's always the option of attempting to replicate Harper's potential value in the aggregate with shorter commitments. For instance, they could sign and/or trade for some combination of J.T. Realmuto, A.J. Pollock, Marwin Gonzalez and Adam Ottavino.

Whatever the case, nobody should be fooled into thinking the Dodgers can't inflate their payroll. If they don't, it'll only be because they didn't want to.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference. Salary and payroll data courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts and Roster Resource. Arbitration salary projections courtesy of MLB Trade Rumors.