Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times
Former Dodgers reliever Pedro Baez reportedly signed a two-year, $10 million deal with the Houston Astros that includes a club option. While it is surprising to see the Astros pluck one of the Dodgers’ own, this shouldn’t get under the skin of Dodger fans.
For as long as I could remember, Pedro Baez has always been there for the Dodgers no matter if they were leading or if the team needed him to eat innings when playing from behind.
He played a total of eight seasons in the Dodgers organization, and in that time he had a career 3.03 ERA, pitching 356 innings.
In 2020, he had an ERA of 3.18 in just 17 innings of work while also having a run average/inning of 4.24, which might be one of the biggest reasons why the Dodgers decided not to bring him back.
Putting the stats aside, it’s clear that Dodgers fans aren’t happy with the Astros, especially after knowing about the whole ordeal having to do with the cheating scandal of 2017. It carried over into the 2021 season when Joe Kelly was suspended for throwing behind Alex Bregman and taunting Carlos Correa, causing benches to clear, something MLB tried hard to prevent due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
There is no doubt that there will be bad blood between these two teams, and the Astros have made themselves into a villain of Major League Baseball.
Houston’s signing of Baez shouldn’t overwork Dodgers fans. He clearly wasn’t worth bringing back in the eyes of the front office, as it has already filled a hole with the Corey Knebel signing, and bringing back Blake Treinen.
A player like Baez should have been looking for the best deal available to him, and he likely selected it by signing with the Astros, a team that felt he was worthy of receiving it.
The team he selected shouldn’t matter. If it helps, the Dodgers will rarely see him as they will face the Astros four times in 2021.
While the rivalry will be there between the fans, there shouldn’t be any more nonsense from the players as the past is the past and both teams should be focused on winning. The Dodgers still have some need in the bullpen area, more specifically for a left-handed reliever.
One thing that this Baez deal did show is that the market for relievers is heating up as free agent relievers are signing.
So far we’ve seen Archie Bradley go to the Phillies, Trevor May to the Mets and Liam Hendriks, the top reliever on the market, go to the White Sox.
The Dodgers could look to fill the left-handed void by signing someone like Brad Hand. Who appears to have garnered significant interest from the Mets, but nothing official at the time.
Either way, Dodgers fans should be more focused on how the team looks to shape its bullpen rather than why Baez chose to sign with the Astros.
Jacob Cisneros is a writer for Dodgers-LowDown. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @_JacobCisneros.