This is Part 14 of a series in which every member of the 2015 Dodgers has his season juxtaposed with an episode of the greatest sitcom of all-time. Don’t take it too seriously.
Carlos Frias, RHP.
Key stats: 445 plate appearances, .294/.366/.486 slash line, 136 OPS-plus in 142 games.
Seinfeld episode: “The Butter Shave” (season 9, episode 1).
Key quote: “This trip was a huge mistake. Huge!”
Daniel Coulombe had the distinction of racking up the most back-and-forth flights to Oklahoma City this season. The Dodgers recalled the pitcher from Triple-A and sent him back on five separate occasions. With Coulombe, at least this was all fairly straightforward.
Carlos Frias wasn’t as fortunate.
One time in April, Frias was recalled from Oklahoma City the very morning he was scheduled to start a Triple-A game. He spent the night sitting in the Dodgers’ bullpen, then was optioned back to Oklahoma City the next day.
In August, he was activated in the middle of a rehab assignment, then optioned back to Triple-A — a transaction that wasn’t announced for three days.
A back injury landed Frias on the disabled list from July 1 to Sept. 17. He missed a total of 66 games. When healthy, Frias started 12 games. He was good in 11 of them (3.34 ERA) and awful in the other one. The outlier was a May 24 home start against the Padres: 10 runs allowed in four innings.
Frias only made four relief appearances in 2015, but he didn’t allow a run in any of them over 6 ⅓ innings. That made it a mild surprise when he was excluded from the roster for the National League Division Series. Take away the back injury, the start against the Padres, and some historically awful bunt attempts, and Frias had a season he could be proud of.
The wasted Oklahoma City-to-Los Angeles trip in April wasn’t the only stone in his path, but it was the only one that conjured memories of a Seinfeld episode — “The Butter Shave,” in which Elaine spends an entire flight breaking up and getting back together with her boyfriend, who is sitting one seat over. A wasted trip, indeed:
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman recently mentioned Frias in a group of reinforcement starters at Triple-A in 2016. Frias is 26 and still under team control for next year. If he can stay healthy, he’ll have a chance at being a bigger part of the club next year in some capacity.
