The Los Angeles Dodgers seem to be spending money … for the sake of spending money. It’s almost as if they feel empty if they haven’t offered an enormous contract to someone for a week or two.

Can you come up with a better explanation for the Dodgers giving $62.5 million over the next six years to a second baseman who comes with his own series of red, flashing warning lights?

Consider:

–Their “new” second baseman, the Cuban Hector Olivera, will be 30 years old in two weeks. This is no kid, and less so by the minute. And the Dodgers have just paid for his 2020 season, when he will be 35.

–According to MLB.com, they are giving Olivera a $28 million bonus. For being a nice guy, or something.

–Olivera has never taken an at-bat in the U.S., never mind the major leagues. Thus, they have committed $62.5 mill to him based entirely on what he did in Cuba. Which plays a nice level of ball, but something significantly below MLB levels.

–Oh, yeah, he may need Tommy John surgery any minute now. MLB.com and Yahoo each reported Olivera has damage in his throwing elbow, and TJ surgery usually means a year on the shelf. So, sure, let’s commit a financial total about equal to what 3-4 franchises will pay the whole of their rosters.

–The Dodgers already have more than one guy who seems to be a competent 2B. Including Howie Kendrick, obtained from the Angels; and Darwin Barney, formerly of the Cubs; and young Alex Guerrero, and Justin Turner, the object of one of the club;’s bobblehead nights in the coming season.

It’s madness. It’s reckless. It’s real money, much of it coming from the huge amounts of cash the Dodgers want to charge cable operators — and, thus, their customers — for the pleasure of watching them play.

The Dodgers clearly have reached a point where they have more money — or expect they will — than they know what to do with. But committing $62.5 million of it to a guy with a bum elbow, who will be (at best) 30 before his first MLB at-bat and who has no history of playing in the U.S. … it takes your breath away. (Or I assume it does. I’m gasping for air.)

You have to wonder if Olivera would have signed for, oh, $52.5 million, and the Dodgers could have roasted marshmallows over a bonfire made of the other $10 million. Since they clearly don’t really need it.