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Dodgers pass on offering arbitration to Vicente Padilla, Rod Barajas and Scott Podsednik

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In continuing their recent trend, the Dodgers announced Tuesday night they would not offer salary arbitration to outfielder Scott Podsednik, catcher Rod Barajas or right-hander Vicente Padilla.

No big surprises, and not a lot a tears to shed here.

Failing to offer arbitration used to mean adios to their returning to the Dodgers next season, but these days teams can still re-sign players to whom they fail to offer arbitration. All three were Type-B free agents.

The Dodgers already had offered to pick up their half of a mutual option on Podsednik at $2 million next season, but he turned down his half and is now a free agent.

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Podsednik is going to test the free-agent waters and see if he can do better than the one-year deal he received last season from the Royals. Good luck. It’s still conceivable he could return, but it’s far from a sure thing. He’s backup material.

Padilla made $5.025 million last season, and there was no way the Dodgers were going to approach that number again, especially for what would now be their fifth starter.

Padilla spent two stints on the disabled list and finished 6-5 with a 4.07 earned-run average.

Barajas made only $500,000 last season, so passing on him was less about the dinero than the Dodgers’ being ready to commit to the 35-year-old.

There are other free-agent catchers out there still to be had.

-- Steve Dilbeck

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