Dodgers @ Mets May 21, 2014: Dodgers, curiously, recall Erisbel Arruebarrena

After Juan Uribe‘s injury last night, we all knew he was going to go on the disabled list. The smart money was on a guy like Carlos Triunfel to be recalled. Luckily, we didn’t bet on it.

	Dodgers			Mets
	4:10pm PT			New York, NY
2B	Gordon		CF	Lagares
RF	Puig		2B	Murphy
SS	Ramirez		3B	Wright
1B	Gonzalez		LF	Young
CF	Kemp		RF	Granderson
LF	Crawford		1B	Campbell
3B	Turner		SS	Flores
C	Ellis		C	Recker
P	Ryu (L)		P	deGrom (R)

The Dodgers on Wednesday recalled Erisbel Arruebarrena from Double-A Chattanooga, in a head-scratching move.

Arruebarrena, 24, debuted with the Lookouts last month and struggled a lot in his first 16 games. He hit .136/.188/.220 in that time. Thanks to a recent hot streak (.324/.359/.432 in nine games), he was hitting .208/.252/.308 on the season. What’s troubling is his 4:31 walk-to-strikeout ratio. He struck out in 29.5 percent of his plate appearances so far, which won’t fly in the majors.

Chris Blessing of ROTOscouting wrote a scouting report (free, for a limited time) on Arruebarrena (#isascout).

“After reporting to spring training a month late due to visa issues, Erisbel Arruebarrena spent the first two weeks of the season in extended spring training before joining the Chattanooga Lookouts on April 19th. The rust showed. Only a recent hot streak pushed Arruebarrena’s batting average above .140. He looked lost at the plate, gripping and whiffing at air. The rare occasion when he made contact, the ball would die on the infield.

The right-handed hitting shortstop has bat speed galore. Unfortunately, Arruebarrena’s swing is a mess. A pronounced hitch in his load negatively affects his ability to read pitches. This forces him to guess. Adding to his struggles, Arruebarrena locks his pull arm, causing him to lead with the front shoulder when swinging the bat. Instead of short and compact, the back of his swing becomes long and loopy. This leaves Arruebarrena is a shoulder swinger. Shoulder swingers generate power from their upper body, not their base. It also ties up his hands. In batting practice, the Dodgers worked on correcting this issue by having Arruebarrena work on his hips rotating. In game action, the issues continued to persist.”

You can also hear Chris, Jared and I talk about Arruebarrena on the latest episode of Dugout Blues.

We all know about his prowess with the glove. He’s a really good defensive shortstop, but at least there’s a little hope for his bat. However, that hope could be impacted by an early promotion to the majors.

Triunfel, also 24, would have been the better player to call up. Triunfel is what his is, but there’s still a chance for Arruebarrena to at least become half-way competent offensively.

Mike is at Citi Field and was present for Don Mattingly‘s media session.

Mattingly: Arruebarrena here because they don’t feel they had a backup for Hanley. Hanley won’t be playing 3b.

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) May 21, 2014

That’s good. Arruebarrena’s bat is not really playable at shortstop, and it’s absolutely not playable at third. But Mattingly doesn’t really explain why Arruebarrena got the call. Justin Turner was Hanley Ramirez‘s backup (sad as it is), but now he (and Chone Figgins) will handle third base until Uribe comes back. Triunfel could do exactly what Arruebarrena is (likely) about to do, without interrupting any kind of development.

Arruebarrena needs all the playing time he can get, but that won’t happen if he’s playing shortstop for Ramirez once a week. This will give Mark McGwire and/or John Valentin a chance to work with him, but that might not be enough to get him where he needs to be.

I don’t agree with this move. I know the Dodgers signed Arruebarrena to a $25 million deal, but a poor slash line in just more than 100 plate appearances in Double-A doesn’t equal a Major League call-up. It’s likely temporary, which means recalling Triunfel would have made even more sense.

This move all but confirms the Dodgers were about to recall Alex Guerrero before Miguel Olivo tried to eat him (probably) on Tuesday. I get wanting to get both sides of the story, but how Olivo hasn’t been given his walking papers yet is beyond me. (Update: Olivo has been suspended by the Isotopes.)

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