The three-minute voice memo Kiké Hernández sent shortly before the Winter Meetings in December detailed everything worth knowing about Edwin Díaz’s situation.
No, Hernández told Andrew Friedman, the Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations, the New York Mets hadn’t even yet made an offer to Díaz.
No, Hernández told Friedman, Díaz didn’t intend to use the Dodgers as leverage.
And, yes, Hernández told Friedman, Díaz held a sincere interest in playing for Los Angeles.
Hernández, a free agent himself at the time, saw an opportunity to make several connections. He and Díaz are close friends, and after spending nine of his 13 major-league seasons in Los Angeles, there is no organization Hernández knows better than the Dodgers.
As Hernández recently explained to The Athletic, he knew that brokering free agent signings was hardly part of his job description. But he recalled telling Friedman: “‘If you want to keep winning, this is your guy.’”
That voice memo marked a turning point for the league’s two highest spenders in their bid for the game’s most accomplished closer. It was an unlikely twist in a story that would somehow grow to include one of the stars from “Modern Family,” hotel security reprimanding anxious Dodgers brass for cranking up the volume to Díaz’s entrance music “Narco,” and team executives making a bold vow to create a pathway for Díaz to Cooperstown.
The inside story of how Díaz switched coasts — spurning the New York Mets after six years for a surprising new start with the Dodgers — highlights the contrasting approaches of two of baseball’s heavyweights.
“When we started talking, we knew it was either Mets or Dodgers,” Díaz said to The Athletic last week. “But with the Dodgers, we did everything quick.”
Less than three weeks into the season, Díaz is already set to see his former team, with the Mets traveling to Los Angeles for a three-game series that starts Monday. It’s a scenario neither the teams nor the player could have predicted four months ago, based on conversations with several people briefed on his free agency, who recently shed more light on the high-stakes turn of events.
Edwin Díaz said the Dodgers told him that if he came to Los Angeles, they would make him a Hall of Famer. (Ryan Sirius Sun / Getty Images)
The GM meetings in November signal the unofficial start of baseball’s offseason, when teams often seek to meet with players they’re interested in signing. But the Dodgers saw little reason to hold such a sit-down with Díaz.
“We started the offseason with very little confidence about signing Edwin,” Friedman said.
The Dodgers believed Díaz would command a four- to five-year contract, and with several mega-deals already on their books, Friedman preferred relievers on one- to two-year deals. The list of candidates was slim.
The reliever market, usually one of the last to take shape, began to move more quickly than the industry first predicted. Raisel Iglesias, whom the Dodgers had identified at the GM meetings as a primary target, re-signed with the Atlanta Braves on a one-year, $16 million deal in mid November. Ryan Helsley was the next closer to go, signing a two-year, $28 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles. That left Devin Williams, Robert Suarez and Díaz as the top remaining closers.
The Dodgers were one of multiple clubs that engaged with Williams before he took a three-year, $51 million contract from the Mets.
Díaz, however, remained off Friedman’s radar.
As The Athletic first reported at the time, the Mets never informed Díaz of their intentions to sign Williams, even though multiple club sources said they maintained an interest in signing both players.
At certain points during his free agency, however, people close to Díaz said that the closer did not feel wanted enough by the Mets.
“I realized Edwin probably feels a little disrespected by this,” Hernández said.
The Mets appreciated Díaz’s accomplishments and personality. Over time, he learned to deftly handle ups and downs in New York City, not an easy task. But the Mets’ process appeared to lack urgency, as they held firm on their preference for a deal of less than five years.
Thanks to an assist from Hernández, the Dodgers would seek to exploit the stalemate.
Díaz and Hernández are close. They are both from Puerto Rico and their ties go back to when Hernández’s father coached Díaz before the latter was drafted. They played together in two World Baseball Classic tournaments. They also share the same agents, Joel Wolfe and Edwin Rodriguez, from The Team (formerly Wasserman). Rodriguez had represented both players since before they were drafted.
Given their connections, Hernández figured it was time to step in: “I reached out to Andrew, and I let him know that I know this guy really well, and I think it’s the right time to act on things.”
Friedman responded about a day later. He asked if Hernández and his wife, Mariana, could reach out to Díaz and his wife, Nashaly, to share their experience with the Dodgers and how the team cares for player’s families. Díaz and Nashaly have three sons who live in Puerto Rico but travel with their mother to be with Díaz during the summer. The four arranged a call, with Hernández and Mariana explaining in great detail the care and comfort they received over nine years with the organization.
“I told him, ‘I don’t think you’re going to regret it one bit if you sign here,’” Hernández said.
At the beginning of the winter, Díaz didn’t consider Los Angeles a potential destination. Now he was intrigued.
“When you see the roster, they have a bunch of good players, but they always want to improve,” Díaz said. “You never know what the Dodgers are thinking.”
Friedman’s aversion to a three-year deal remained firm — except when it came to Díaz. If the closer’s interest was as strong as Hernández indicated, might the reliever be willing to take less than the projected four- to five-year deal? Would a higher annual average value help increase those odds of him taking a shorter contract?
The Dodgers have a penchant for what they term as “hanging around the backboard” — a strategy made possible by their deep-pocketed ownership group. When they see an opportunity on the market, they pounce. As the Winter Meetings got underway, Friedman realized another window was opening.
Edwin Díaz had 144 saves and a 2.93 ERA in his Mets career. “I don’t have anything bad to say about them.” (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Dave Roberts was on vacation. On the Sunday before the official start of the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Roberts was in Kansas City attending the Chiefs’ game against the Houston Texans with longtime friend and Emmy-winning actor Eric Stonestreet. That’s when the Dodgers’ manager received a text from Friedman, asking if he’d be free to hop on a videoconference call with Díaz.
Roberts was surprised. Díaz had not come up in talks with the front office.
“The first time I learned he was on our radar, we were on the Zoom call the next day,” Roberts said.
By now, Díaz’s market was gaining clarity. League sources said the Braves checked in and explored the potential cost while the Toronto Blue Jays also expressed interest, though they stopped short of making an offer. The Dodgers made an initial three-year contract proposal, and on the day Roberts watched the Chiefs game, the Mets offered Díaz a three-year deal worth $66 million that included deferrals.
The following day, a Monday morning, just before his flight to the Winter Meetings, Roberts logged onto a video call from Stonestreet’s house. He was joined by Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes, who had already arrived in Orlando and had called in from the team suite. Díaz and Nashaly signed on from their home in Puerto Rico.
One particular statement stood out to Díaz: “The Dodgers told me if I came to Los Angeles and we have the chance to sign you, we will make you a Hall of Famer.”
The Dodgers, multiple people on the call said, made Díaz feel wanted. His wife was equally impressed. It also helped that Díaz’s brother Alexis briefly pitched for the organization in 2025 and raved about how he was treated. Things were beginning to line up for a seismic signing. The Dodgers sensed it as well. When the call ended, Roberts knew he had his new closer.
“I told the guys, ‘We got him,’” Roberts said. “It just went so well.”
Friedman had been skeptical, though that changed after the call. The Dodgers upped their offer.
“That Monday, we sensed a real shift in the conversation,” he said. “Then it became, let’s do anything and everything we can to get him to a yes.”
Negotiations continued into that Monday night, even as Gomes downplayed the desire for a high-end closer, telling reporters that evening, “There aren’t as many clear paths to make the team meaningfully better.” Those comments did not match the mood of the team officials gathered in the team suite. The talks gained speed and the excitement in the room matched the pace.
Around 11 p.m., assistant general manager Alex Slater found Díaz’s ninth-inning entrance music on YouTube and played it on the television in the suite. Not long after the familiar trumpets of “Narco” by Timmy Trumpet and Blasterjaxx blared through the room, the group received a noise complaint and a visit from hotel security, who asked that they tone things down.
But by the following morning, the Dodgers had every reason to party.
Díaz agreed to a three-year, $69 million contract, with his $23 million annual average value setting a record for relief pitchers. In a matter of days, Los Angeles went from having legitimate bullpen concerns to signing the best available closer on the market, locking up the ninth inning for at least the next three years.
The Dodgers could control the 32-year-old Díaz for an additional season thanks to a $6.5 million conditional team option for 2029 with no buyout. The Dodgers could exercise the option if Díaz has a specified injury through the end of the 2028 season, per the Associated Press, and he does not end the season or postseason healthy, or if he has a specified surgery.
Neither the specific injury nor surgery has been disclosed. But if the conditional option is exercised, Díaz could earn $2.5 million in performance bonuses for 2029 based on games finished: $750,000 each for 45 and 50 games and $1 million for 55.
The Mets’ last bid was for less, though the club had suggested it could go higher. Díaz didn’t give the Mets that chance.
“I did find that one perplexing. (I’m) not sure exactly how Edwin arrived at that decision,” Mets owner Steve Cohen said in a February interview with Mets radio broadcaster Howie Rose. “Obviously, it’s a personal decision on his part, and I thought we made a pretty respectable bid.”
Cohen added, “I could argue our bid might have been better than the Dodgers’ when you have that fourth conditional year that I don’t think people were really talking about in his contract. But he made his decision.”
It is unclear exactly how far the Mets would have gone for Díaz. The closer was looking for an annual average value of at least $20 million after deferrals were taken into account, league sources said, with less deferred money spread over a shorter period. But it is reasonable to think that Díaz may have figured that the Mets would not hit that mark.
To become a free agent in the first place, Díaz opted out of a five-year, $102 million deal that set a record at the time for the richest deal for a reliever. That decision came after a stellar 2025 season in which Díaz posted a 1.63 ERA over 66 1/3 innings with 98 strikeouts.
Ultimately, Diaz said, his decision came down to a desire to win his first World Series and to be with a team he felt supported by.
“I have a lot of respect for the Mets organization, players, staff, ownership,” Díaz said in spring training. “They treated me really good. I don’t have anything bad to say about them. But at the end of the day, I’m here. This is a new journey for me and I’m happy to be with the Dodgers, so let’s see how it goes.”
Not since Kenley Jansen have the Dodgers boasted a traditional closer. They went five seasons without naming a ninth-inning man.
Thanks to the prompting of a clubhouse staple, they now have one of baseball’s best relievers for the foreseeable future. After Díaz signed, Friedman joked with Hernández that it was the first time a free agent had helped sign a player.
Eventually, Friedman returned the favor. The Dodgers re-signed Hernández two months later, bringing back a fan favorite for one more year.
