PHOENIX — The Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks both did something interesting this off-season by deferring payments on some fairly large contracts.

The Diamondbacks will be paying Zack Greinke only $144 million of his estimated $206.5 million contract over the life of his six-year contract. The Dodgers will be paying Scott Kazmir through 2021 even though it’s only a three-year, $48 million deal.

This week, Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall and Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi explained the rationale behind their decisions to defer money. From the Arizona Republic:

“It’s not something that we’re going to start doing now,” Hall said, “but in this case we felt we needed to really bite the bullet on this one, with that window we talk about and our big glaring hole.”

Hall said the club needed to make sure it had enough budget room to add another starter in addition to Greinke, which it eventually did by acquiring right-hander Shelby Miller in a trade with the Atlanta Braves.

“In order to do it and make it work, there was probably no other way,” Hall said. “But it’s not something we want to start practicing again. It was an isolated case that still made sense for us financially as we can see the future of those revenues coming in.”

Zaidi’s thinking fell along similar lines.

“It was just something to help us smooth out our total expenses the next few years,” he said. “We didn’t have a hard-cap budget. Certainly this year, if we need to make additional moves, (deferring payments to Kazmir) helps.”