Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought for sure Justin Sellers was going to get DFA’d over the last two years. Five? Ten? A dozen? He’s always seemingly been on the extreme edges of the 40-man roster, combining lackluster play with a bizarre motorcycle arrest, yet he has somehow continued to survive.
Today, his tenure finally comes to an end, as I’ve completely buried the story here: the Dodgers have finally completed the signing of Cuban shortstop Erisbel Arruebarrena. You’ll notice that there’s suddenly no second U in that name, and that’s how it was announced… although as you can see above, that’s not how he had it on his Cuban uniform. Which yes, that’s weird.
Via press release Ned Colletti said…
“Signing Arruebarrena gives us another very good middle infielder, who is an outstanding defender,” said Dodger General Manager Ned Colletti. “It continues our efforts internationally to add talent that can positively affect the Major League club – be it immediately or in the very near future.”
As we discussed the other day, the deal is for five years and $25 million. Yes, that’s a lot for a player who might not be able to hit. No, we can’t say with certainty that he can’t be at least be a tolerable hitter, and a mediocre (but not atrocious) bat combined with an elite glove is worth $5 million a year. Can he even be tolerable? We don’t know yet. The Dodgers apparently think so. They haven’t been wrong a lot lately in international scouting.
We don’t yet know how the financial breakdown will happen, so he hasn’t yet been added to our budget sheet, but he is now on the depth chart, with a projected starting spot of Double-A Chattanooga. Sellers goes off to DFA limbo, though it’s not at all difficult to see him going unclaimed and ending up back in the organization — remember, that happened to Scott Van Slyke last winter. It is interesting, however, to note that the choice was to whack Sellers as opposed to moving Chad Billingsley to the 60-day disabled list, since he’s clearly not going to be ready for some time.
The Dodgers claim that their new shortstop’s name is pronounced ” pronounced Arr-ru-eh-BAHR-ena,” but I think we all know it really goes:
