Andre Ethier now a free agent after Dodgers decline $17.5M option

The Los Angeles Dodgers have declined outfielder Andre Ethier's club option, making him a free agent.

Ethier, the longest-tenured member of the team, was in the final year of a five-year, $85 million deal that had a $17.5 million vesting option for 2018. The Dodgers, with a surplus of left-handed outfielders, declined the option and instead bought Ethier out for $2.5 million.

Ethier, 35, missed most of the past two seasons, playing in only 38 regular-season games because of a fractured right tibia in 2016 and a herniated disk in 2017. During both years, he rehabbed to make Los Angeles' postseason roster.

Ethier contributed for the Dodgers in the final month of this season, appearing in eight of the team's 15 postseason games as Los Angeles clinched its first National League pennant in 29 years. In his final at-bat for the team, he drove in the Dodgers' only run with a pinch-hit single as they lost 5-1 to the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the World Series.

A two-time All-Star, Ethier has spent his entire 12-year career with the Dodgers. He is a lifetime .285 hitter, with 162 career home runs.