Free agency as we know it has existed in Major League Baseball since the 1970s. In 1972, Curt Flood won a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1975, arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally and destroyed MLB’s “reserve clause” that was just a clever way of saying “You play for who we say you play for, forever and ever.” Free agency was first codified in the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the union in 1976.
Since that time, the Dodgers have signed hundreds of free agents, and it looks like they might sign a few more this offseason… eventually.