Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Ethier Decides Now Would Be A Good Time To Play The Grumpy Card

One thing about recently-departed OF Matt Kemp: the last couple of seasons, when injuries were plaguing his performance and he had fallen from MVP-caliber levels--he was able to maintain a more mature and positive attitude than may have been evident in his rookie years.

Andre Ethier, in contrast, may have regressed:

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The Los Angeles Dodgers were hoping they were done with the drama that comes with having an excess of well-paid outfielders after they traded Matt Kemp to the San Diego Padres over the winter, but the storyline could linger.

Andre Ethier, who was the odd man out for most of the second half of 2014, said he would prefer to play elsewhere if there isn't an everyday job open for him on the Dodgers.

Ethier is the longest-tenured Dodgers player, having broken in with the team in 2006. The Dodgers' tentative Opening Day plans are for Carl Crawford to start in left field, rookie Joc Pederson in center and Yasiel Puig in right, with Ethier the fourth outfielder.

"You're not wishing for it ever to end, but sometimes that opportunity takes you somewhere else," Ethier said. "I'm not going to do anything to sit here and force it. Hopefully it works itself out."

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said early in the winter he would like to trade at least one and possibly two outfielders to make the Dodgers a more functional team. He sent Kemp, $32 million and catcher Tim Federowicz to the Padres for catcher Yasmani Grandal and pitcher Joe Wieland. He was unable to find a trade match for Ethier, who has three years and $55 million left on his contract.

Ethier, 32, batted .249 with four home runs and a .691 OPS in 331 at-bats last season. His production has been in decline since the 2012 season, when he had an .810 OPS and hit 20 home runs, but his playing time also has declined each of the past two seasons.

"I want the opportunity to play every day. My mind hasn't changed from when I told you guys that a couple months ago," Ethier said. "I felt like when I get a chance to play every day, I put up the numbers they ask of me. For some strange reason, it just happened that coming off a good 2012 season, in 2013 they took games away. You start to wonder why that happened. I feel like if I get a good full year in and get the at-bats, it starts to add up. It's tough when you get 300 at-bats and you're expected to hit 15 or 20 home runs."

Yeah, it's tough to know $55M is due to you for part-time work, especially when your productivity has shown significant declines.

C'mon, Andre. You were a good team player all last year. Don't botch it now with some ill-placed comments.

5 comments:

Dusty Baker said...

I thought he decided to be grouchy years ago.

I know I did.

Dusty Baker said...

Yeah if he isn't comfortable, he just needs to go to management and voice that professionally.

karen said...

Freaking whiner. Dude needs to shut up or he may find himself fielding flies at Petco Field with My Matty.

I do, however, love the grumpy cat pic.

Paul said...

Only thing I disagree with is the item about Matty. Dude almost threw a fit a few times trying to be a center-fielder in right last year and had a few passive aggressive bitch mode days.

As for Dre, doesn't he realize if he was half as good as he thinks he is he would have been traded by now? No one wants him for that $. Restructure that contract to be traded if playing everyday is so important

spank said...

I'm done with Dre. that's it. from now on when i refer to him it'll be with the name "chavala".