This winter, the Los Angeles Dodgers were a busy team. Headed by the new braintrust of Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, Los Angeles dumped Dee Gordon, Dan Haren, and Matt Kemp (among others) in trades, bringing back Yasmani Grandal, Howie Kendrick, and Jimmy Rollins in three separate trades. The team also hoarded a plethora of arms to bolster their bullpen and add some rotation depth, which are both looking like brilliant moves given the injuries suffered by the Dodgers’ pitching staff in 2015.
But while all of those transactions are having quite an impact on the Dodgers this season, the best move the team may have made this winter was one they *didn’t* make – keeping outfielder Andre Ethier.
The Dodgers wanted to trade Ethier. He turned 33 in April. He was coming off of a 2014 season in which he hit .249/.322/.370 with just four home runs over 130 games. He was still due $54.5 million from 2015-17. But the Dodgers couldn’t find a taker, and they were stuck with Ethier going into Spring Training. On paper, he looked like the team’s sixth best outfielder behind Yasiel Puig, Carl Crawford, Joc Pederson, Scott Van Slyke, and Chris Heisey. It was going to be tough for Ethier to earn any sort of significant playing time in 2015 with the Dodgers.
Naturally, attrition has given Ethier a spot in the lineup. Puig has played in just 11 games while dealing with a hamstring injury, and an oblique has landed Crawford on the DL after only 15 games. Heisey has spent the year (minus one game) with AAA Oklahoma City. Ethier has thrived in his role this season, matching his 2014 home run total in 300 fewer plate appearances and hitting an excellent .292/.390/.554. Ethier has always had strong platoon splits, and he’s continued that success against righties going into 2015, hitting .283/.406/.585 over 64 plate appearances.
The injuries that the Dodgers have suffered have given Ethier an opportunity to play every day, and he’s taken advantage of it. But he’s not the only one – Van Slyke and Alex Guerrero are also thriving. Van Slyke has gotten eight starts in the outfield, and has hit .333/.400/.513 over 45 plate appearances. Guerrero wasn’t even in the conversation for a roster spot this spring, but in 17 games and 39 plate appearances, he’s launched five homers while hitting .333/.359/.806 and playing at both third base and left field.
If the Dodgers ended up moving Ethier this winter, they likely wouldn’t have gotten much of a return and would have probably eaten the vast majority of his contract. They’d be looking at a situation right now with two of Van Slyke, Guerrero, and Heisey flanking the rookie Pederson in the outfield. But they kept Ethier, and haven’t lost a beat despite losing two-thirds of their starting outfield. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good, and the Dodgers are extremely lucky that no time was interested in Ethier this winter.
