This is Part 13 of a series in which every member of the 2015 Dodgers has his season juxtaposed with an episode of the greatest sitcom of all-time. Don’t take it too seriously.
Andre Ethier, OF.
Key stats: 445 plate appearances, .294/.366/.486 slash line, 136 OPS-plus in 142 games.
Seinfeld episode: “The Robbery” (season 1, episode 3).
Key quote: “If you’re having second thoughts, if you didn’t want it, don’t worry about it because uh, ya know, I, I…I could take it, ya know.”
Andre Ethier’s bounceback season with the Dodgers was set in motion with a nixed trade.
We think.
You see, it was reported back in December of last year that the Dodgers and Diamondbacks were all set to make a multi-player trade. Ethier was headed to his native Arizona, and the Dodgers would get catcher Miguel Montero in return.
According to the report, the trade was nixed by Diamondbacks ownership. The Dodgers ended up keeping Ethier and instead traded Matt Kemp to San Diego for catcher Yasmani Grandal weeks later. When Ethier proceeded to post his best offensive season in at least five years, the non-trade looks like a genius move — if only accidental genius.
Diamondbacks executive Tony La Russa subsequently denied the report, and the use of unnamed sources by the only reporter to report it casts at least a shadow of doubt over the whole story. (That said, La Russa has famously lied before.)
The whole thing was reminiscent of “The Robbery,” in which a multi-apartment trade was nixed by George Costanza’s greed. Elaine was all set to move into Jerry’s apartment and Jerry was all set to move into a property George identified … until George uttered the famous words above, and no one ended up moving:
Just like we can’t imagine Seinfeld without Jerry’s apartment as the backdrop, we can’t imagine the 2015 Dodgers without Ethier.
He never started against left-handed pitchers, which wasn’t a big deal since the Dodgers only saw 43 left-handed pitchers all season. (That’s not quite true; Ethier started against a lefty in Game 162, which the Padres designated as a “bullpen game,” and Ethier struck out in his only at-bat against Frank Garces. Oh well.)
Aided in part by adhering to a strict platoon, Ethier’s numbers soared. He finished with his highest batting average in a season since 2008 (when he was 26), his highest home run total since 2012 (age 30) and his highest adjusted OPS+ since … ever, all at age 33.
Alternating between left field and right field, Ethier was the perfect defensive complement to the Dodgers’ injury-prone Opening Day corner outfielders, Yasiel Puig and Carl Crawford. Ethier ultimately supplanted Crawford on the depth chart and gave no viable reason why he can’t do the same in 2016.
For a player followed often by trade rumors in winters past, this could be a relatively quiet one for Ethier.