Erisbel Arruebarrena Remains A Dodger, As You Should Have Expected

When the Dodgers DFA’d Erisbel Arruebarrena last week, it actually made plenty of sense, even though plenty of people misunderstood it. All a DFA is for a player in his situation is the loss of a 40-man spot, not an exile from an organization. Unless a team claimed him (very unlikely) or wanted to trade for him (somewhat unlikely),  all that was going to happen here would be that Arruebarrena would clear waivers and find himself in Triple-A, which is what was going to happen in 2015 whether he had a 40-man spot or not. We’ve seen this game before, with Scott Van Slyke in 2012 and Scott Elbert this past summer.

Today, we reach the inevitable conclusion of that charade — Arruebarrena has cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A Oklahoma City, per his inclusion on a list of non-roster invites. (Which we will get to separately.)

So after the complaints that the Dodgers had “wasted money” on Arruebarrena — and while that may yet be true, it’s not because of this, and was from a different regime anyway — ultimately, nothing happened here, except that the Dodgers gained a 40-man spot, and we learned a little about how the new front office feels about one of the old front office’s decision.

Arruebarrena remains as depth, just as he should be, regardless of his contract. I haven’t yet given up completely on him being useful, so short of someone shockingly taking him off the Dodgers’ hands, this isn’t a bad outcome.