For astute Dodgers fans, Friday’s announcement that the Dodgers had signed 31-year-old outfielder Michael Conforto to a one-year / $17 million contract which includes an $8.5 million signing bonus, of which $6.5 million is payable on January 15, 2025 and the balance due next December, is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Although the Seattle, WA native and first-round draft pick in 2014 by the New York Mets out of Oregon State University was an All-Star in 2017, he has zero Gold Gloves and zero Silver Sluggers. He hit .237 with 20 home runs and 66 RBIs with the San Francisco Giants in 2024 and owns a career slash line of .251/.348/.456/.804 over his nine MLB seasons – not atrocious, but not all that great either.
“He’s a guy that we reached out on at the Trade Deadline last year,” Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said of Conforto during the just-concluded MLB Winter Meetings in Dallas, TX. “Respected him from afar for a while. It’s not often for a guy that they’re both a floor-raiser with ceiling.”
(Jeff Chiu)
It gets worse.
Conforto declined a one-year / $18.4 million offer from the Mets following the 2021 season and went unsigned in 2022 while recovering from right shoulder surgery.
It gets even worse.
Friedman’s 2025 Dodgers drawing board figures to have Conforto as an every day corner outfielder, joining Tommy Edman and rookie sensation Andy Pages, with future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts (presumably) becoming the Dodgers every day shortstop. As such, what happens with extremely popular Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández, who, as of this writing, remains an unsigned free agent?
Although Friedman recently said that negotians are on-going with the 32-year-old Cotui, Dominican Republic native who slashed .272/.339/.501/.840 with 33 home runs and 99 RBIs in 2024 and was the 2024 Home Run Derby champion, he also recently said:
“…if he decides to sign somewhere else we have no other choice to wish him well.”
(Jon Soohoo)
Do you see where this is going?
There is no kind or gentle way to put it – Teoscar Hernández will (probably) soon be an ex-Dodger.
…and that just plain sucks.
Play Ball!
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