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Max Muncy

Max Muncy To Miss Time With Wrist Injury

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FRIDAY: X-rays didn’t reveal a fracture, Roberts announced, though Muncy still has to undergo more tests (via Castillo).

THURSDAY: Dodgers slugger Max Muncy made an early exit from Wednesday’s 6-4 win over the Padres, as Muncy left the game after being hit in the right wrist by a Matt Strahm fastball during a fifth-inning plate appearance.  Muncy is undergoing x-rays today to determine the extent of the injury, though manager Dave Roberts told the Los Angeles Times’ Jorge Castillo (Twitter links) that even if Muncy has avoided a fracture or a break, the infielder will be sidelined “until at least early next week” until he recovers from what is currently being called a right wrist contusion.

A 10-day injured list stint could be in the offing for Muncy, as if he’s in line to miss at least four or five days at minimum, the Dodgers could choose to simply put him on the IL to give him more time to fully recover.  Then again, with rosters expanding on Sunday, an IL placement might not be necessary since Los Angeles will have up to 15 extra players on hand.

These looming September call-ups bring an added dimension to Muncy’s injury, as if he faces a longer-term absence, Roberts said the Dodgers “will be more aggressive” in determining their minor league promotions.  The skipper didn’t provide any further details when asked the obvious follow-up of whether this could result in star prospect Gavin Lux receiving his first taste of MLB action.

Lux has been obliterating Triple-A pitching, though the Dodgers have reportedly been on the fence about promoting Lux given their depth of second base options.  Muncy has received the large bulk of playing time at second base (Lux’s intended position) in recent months, though Enrique Hernandez and Chris Taylor are both back from the IL and utilityman Jedd Gyorko is also on hand.  Since Hernandez and Taylor are both regularly required in the outfield, however, Lux could have a clearer path to regular second base time without Muncy in the mix.

After signing a minor league contract with the Dodgers in April 2017, Muncy came out of nowhere to hit 35 homers with a .973 OPS over 481 plate appearances for L.A. last season.  While Muncy hasn’t quite been as spectacular in 2019 as he was in 2018, his follow-up campaign has been more than solid — .253/.375/.525 with 33 home runs over 534 PA.  A broken or fractured wrist would require at least a month to heal, thus putting Muncy’s availability for the postseason in serious question and creating a big hole in the Dodgers’ powerful lineup.

Max Muncy: Not A Fluke

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Max Muncy rose from obscurity last year to become one of the majors’ most improbable success stories. The Athletics jettisoned Muncy in April 2017, a half-decade after they used a fifth-round draft pick on him. The Dodgers then scooped up Muncy on a minor league contract that has turned into one of the greatest low-risk deals in recent memory.

Muncy didn’t take a single at-bat with the Dodgers in his first year with the franchise, instead thriving for the entire season at the Triple-A level, but he broke out as a premier major leaguer in 2018. Muncy slashed a remarkable .263/.391/.582 (162 wRC+) with 35 home runs in just 481 plate appearances, all while seeing significant action at first and third base. The all-around package was worth an astounding 5.2 fWAR – the same amount Braves superstar Freddie Freeman totaled in 226 more trips to the plate.

Muncy was a good-not-great A’s prospect who wasn’t a remotely successful big leaguer prior to last season. As such, questions abounded over what he’d do for an encore this season after his eye-opening breakout in 2018. Three-plus months into the season, Muncy hasn’t quite been the force he was a year ago, but that’s a compliment to what he accomplished then – not an indictment on his current production. Having just earned the first All-Star nod of his career, Muncy is emphatically showing he’s not a fluke.

The 28-year-old has already accounted for 3.0 fWAR, good for a 20th-place tie among position players, through 359 trips to the plate. Once again, his offensive output has been fantastic, as the lefty’s slashing .265/.365/.529 (134 wRC+) with 22 homers. Muncy’s power has dropped in comparison to last year – his ISO has fallen from .319 to .265, and his launch angle has sunk from 17.8 degrees to 12.6 – though he has still been one of the game’s most imposing threats at the plate. Statcast backs up Muncy’s bottom-line production, evidenced in part by a .379 expected weighted on-base average that actually outdoes his .377 wOBA. Muncy’s xwOBA ranks in the league’s 90th percentile, while his hard-hit percentage (61st), expected batting average (73rd) and expected slugging percentage (83rd) are also comfortably above average.

Muncy, however, hasn’t achieved his resounding success the same way he did last year. A more aggressive approach (his swing rate’s up 5 percent since 2018) has helped lead to more swings and misses and fewer walks, yet Muncy is making more contact and striking out less. Unlike last season, Muncy’s doing more of his damage against right-handed pitchers than lefties. Once again, though, he has had little trouble with either, as shown by his 143 wRC+ versus southpaws and a 131 mark against righties.

For the second straight year, Muncy’s proving capable of helping his loaded team in multiple ways. The Dodgers, unafraid to heavily deploy players at two or more positions, have given Muncy between 23 and 46 appearances at first, second and third this year. He has risen to the challenge by offering plus defense at each position, per Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating. Adding up his work at all three spots, Muncy has accounted for 10 DRS and a 2.4 UZR.

With Muncy’s help last year, the Dodgers won their sixth straight NL West crown and their second consecutive pennant. With Muncy’s help this year, they’re shoo-ins to take home their seventh division championship in a row. More importantly, he may aid in the club’s first World Series title since 1988. Not bad for a player who’s only two years removed from joining the Dodgers off the scrapheap.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Dodgers, Red Sox Set World Series Rosters

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With the World Series set to kick off tonight, both teams have announced changes to their 25-man rosters.

For the Dodgers, left-handed reliever Scott Alexander replaces Caleb Ferguson, the team announced. Alexander will be LA’s third left-handed option out of the pen, along with 22-year-old Julio Urias and regular season starter Alex Wood. The Dodgers have shuffled between Urias, Ferguson and Alexander as the third left-hander in the pen this postseason, with each player making the roster for two of the three playoff rounds. 

Of the three, the 21-year-old Ferguson is the least seasoned, whereas Alexander profiles most-closely to a left-handed specialist – though none have drastic platoon splits. Still, it’s likely Alexander spent the weekend going over the scouting reports of Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Mitch Moreland and Jackie Bradley Jr. 

For the Red Sox, they’ve also made a change to their bullpen. The team announced the addition of lefty Drew Pomeranz over right-handed options Brandon Workman or Steven Wright. It’s a bit of a surprising move given Pomeranz hasn’t pitched since September 30th. Conversely, Wright is recovering from left knee issues, while Workman was shelled in his three October appearances. Workman appeared twice in the ALDS and and once in the ALCS, pitching one third of an inning each time, surrendering a total five earned runs and seven hits in his one total inning of work.

You have to figure the Red Sox believe Pomeranz is closer to his 2017 self (137 ERA+) than his 2018 self (72 ERA+). One glimmer of hope in Pomeranz’s disastrous 2018 campaign: all 12 HRs surrendered this season were vs. right-handed hitters. For his career, lefties have hit .224/.305/.313 against Pomeranz, whereas righties have hit .247/.330/.420. Should Chris Sale or David Price fail to go deep into games, Boston will have the option of deploying Pomeranz as a long-man, or as a lefty specialist to counter Max Muncy, Joc Pederson and/or NLCS MVP Cody Bellinger. 

Quick Hits: Muncy, Voit, O’Hearn, Spin Rates, Astros

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In one of the most statistically improbable turnarounds in recent memory, Dodgers 1B/2B/3B/OF Max Muncy, he of the .195/.290/.321 line across 245 plate appearances in parts of two seasons for Oakland, broke out in the biggest of ways for Los Angeles this season, slamming 35 home runs in just 395 AB and posting a .263/.391/.582 mark that stood as one of the National League’s best.  Yankees 1B Luke Voit, a footnote trade deadline acquisition in ’18, posted an even more impressive (albeit in a much smaller sample) 187 wRC+ in 161 PA down the stretch for the Bombers this season.  And Royals 1B Ryan O’Hearn, who’d slumped badly in parts of two seasons at Triple-A Omaha before his promotion this summer, shocked the organization by dropping a .262/.353/.597 mark across 170 PA for Kansas City in the second half.  In a fascinating look at their respective backgrounds, Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper (subscription required) revisits the trio’s unheralded prospect days, when the three seemed to register only mildly on the wide-ranging radar of professional scouts.  All three, it appears, were hampered by the 2011 NCAA-mandated switch from aluminum bats to composite, with Voit in particular banging just 19 career HR across four seasons at Missouri State (a school which, notably, has produced a glut of big leaguers, including Ryan Howard, over the last two decades).  Though none of the three were highly regarded in their respective organizations prior to the breakouts, and sustained production at their 2018 levels seems virtually impossible, it should be noted that a number of players have shown immediate power spikes upon their promotion to MLB of late, and both Muncy (.392) and Voit (.440, best in the league among players with at least 150 PA) rate quite favorably in Statcast’s xWOBA metric.

In other bits of interest from around the league . . .

  • FiveThirtyEight’s Travis Sawchik launches far into the spin-rate galaxy in a delightfully data-heavy piece packed with informative bits.  Though the spin-rate data is still young, and ever-conservative analysts caution against drawing too heavily from its many layers, certain teams appear to be drilling in earnest: Sawchik cites the Astros, Yankees, and Dodgers as teams who’ve seen significant jumps in the four-seam fastball version of the metric since the advent of the data, taking particular care to address the case of Gerrit Cole, whose resurgent season coincided with a jump of over 200 rpms in his four-seamer from 2017.  Still, traditional analytic bastions Oakland and Tampa Bay have each seen a decrease in overall spin-rate on the fastball over the same frame, so perhaps the aforementioned uptick is little more than coincidence.  The article, which also features a good deal of commentary and speculation from outspoken Indians hurler Trevor Bauer, is well worth a full read for all.
  • The Astros, who revamped their organization with a heavy emphasis on raw data and wall-to-wall granularity, also care deeply about the team’s culture, writes Jayson Stark of The Athletic. GM Jeff Luhnow came to Houston from St. Louis, which Stark describes as ’obsessed’ with the culture of the team, and has apparently taken great strides to ensure the Astros “operate as a cohesive unit.” “We spend a lot of time,” Luhnow said. “Clubbies [clubhouse men] talk to clubbies. Trainers talk to trainers. Front offices talk to front offices. Players talk to players. You can always find a player who was with that team last year who is no longer with them, who somebody with the organization knows. Information crosses boundaries very rapidly.”  The piece is rife with further quotes from Luhnow and analysis from Stark, who cites Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann as players who were acquired for more than just their on-field abilities.

NL Notes: Darvish, Bryant, Duensing, Bass, Hedges, Muncy

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Yu Darvish has yet to resume throwing after getting a cortisone shot in his arm last week, but according to Cubs president Theo Epstein, that doesn’t mean the club is likely to go out and try to acquire a frontline starter prior to the July 31st trade deadline. Carrie Muskat of MLB.com compiled quotes from Epstein about the club’s deadline stance that leave little room for interpretation. “There’s no way we’re going to go out and acquire starters the caliber of a locked-in Kyle Hendricks or a locked-in Jose Quintana. The majority of our answers lie within, that’s for sure,” he said. Of course, he later added that the club is “still in the mode of assessing”; it’s not difficult to imagine that things could change quickly if the rotation doesn’t turn itself around. In regards to Darvish’s status, Epstein said the club doesn’t want to push him too hard in an effort to get him back on the field. ’It’s not about rushing. Just get back out there. Get back in your routine. Get back in your work. Then, as this plays, we’ll get you back out there. Of course, we want you back sooner rather than later, but if biology’s not going to permit it, it’s not going to permit it.” Beyond Darvish, the Cubs have gotten disappointing performances from Hendricks, Quintana and offseason signee Tyler Chatwood on the year.

More from around the National League…

  • In Muskat’s piece, Kris Bryant also gets a mention. The former MVP reportedly had a good day in the batting cages on Friday and is nearing a return from the DL. Bryant’s been sidelined since June 23rd with shoulder inflammation, and the Cubs have anxiously been hoping to get him healthy again and back in the lineup. P.J. Mooney of The Athletic reports on Twitter that Bryant is heading to the Cubs’ AA affiliate to begin his rehab assignment; he’ll be joined by lefty Brian Duensing. Mooney also notes that righty Anthony Bass is headed to the DL due to an illness; fellow righty James Norwood will take his place, making his first trip to the big leagues.
  • The Padres still believe in the offensive potential of elite defensive backstop Austin Hedges, says AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. But they’re more than happy with the value he’s providing them with from behind the plate. Manager Andy Green had this to say on the subject: “We’re patient on the offensive side, because we see the value on the defensive side.” Hedges was right at the Mendoza line on the season with a .200 average entering play today, and his OPS sat south of .600 as well.
  • Breakout Dodgers slugger Max Muncy has been tearing it up this season, with an ISO of .347 to go with an 18.9% walk rate. But he almost didn’t play baseball at all this year, as Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports chronicles. Following his release by the A’s last season, Muncy was looking into how many classes it would take to complete his business degree. “You start experiencing failure and you don’t know if you’re as good as you thought you were. Mentally I wasn’t doing as good as I should have been. And then, last year was a chance for me to regroup and recover and focus on myself,” Muncy said. “I could just focus on baseball, remembering how much I love the game and how much I liked playing it. For me, that was the biggest thing.” Now, of course, things have turned around to an extraordinary level, and Muncy is practically a lock for his first All-Star selection.

Injury Notes: Kendrick, Bumgarner, Mauer, Moore, Souza, Cuthbert

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Things got even worse for the Nationals today; Howie Kendrick appeared to sustain a serious injury while chasing down a Max Muncy fly ball. Kendrick was carted off the field, and was seen pointing to his ankle area. Jamal Collier of MLB.com reports that he’s off to get an MRI. The Nationals are already dealing with injuries to a number of other key players, including Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Eaton, Matt Wieters and Brian Goodwin, and can ill afford to lose another player from their outfield for an extended period of time. They’ll likely be anxious as they await further news on Kendrick.

More injury news from around MLB today…

  • Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner considers his fractured left hand to be “95% or more” healed, according to a tweet from MLB.com’s Chris Haft. He’s on track to throw live batting practice on Tuesday and begin a rehab assignment on Saturday. Meanwhile, Haft says, Johnny Cueto will head to the club’s rehab facility in Arizona. The Giants will hope for the best-case scenarios as far as the timetables of these two players; their depleted rotation is a chief factor in the club’s sub-.500 record on the season.
  • Joe Mauer is headed to the Twins’ DL with concussion symptoms once again, according to LaVelle E. Neal of the Star Tribute. He reportedly did well in regards to concussion tests last night, but is apparently experiencing some sensitivity to light along with some balance issues. Mauer, who has dealt with concussion issues in years past, is walking at a 16.8% clip so far this season en route to a .404 OBP. According to chief baseball officer Derek Falvey (via MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger), the club is “not saying at this time that Joe has a concussion.”
  • The Rangers have placed lefty Matt Moore on the 10-day disabled list with what the club is calling right knee soreness. The move will make room for fellow righty Ariel Jurado, who will make the jump from Double-A to debut in the majors tonight. Jurado has a 2.57 ERA in 35 minor league innings this year, but with a 5.31 FIP that strongly disagrees with those results. He posted a 4.59 ERA at Double-A last season, with 5.45 K/9.
  • Diamondbacks outfielder Steven Souza will avoid the DL for the time being, says Zach Buchanan of The Athletic. A key offseason acquisition by the Dbacks, Souza has already spent the bulk of the season on the DL after suffering a pectoral strain upon diving for a ball in the outfield. Fortunately, it seems as though some minor pec soreness will not require a second DL stint for the time being.
  • The Royals have placed Cheslor Cuthbert on the 10-day DL with a lower back strain, recalling fellow infielder Ramon Torres from Triple-A Omaha in a corresponding move. Cuthbert is a career .252/.308/.383 hitter, and is performing especially poorly this season, as evidenced by his -0.5 fWAR for 2018. However, Torres seems unlikely to provide any significant upgrade; he’s hitting just .229/.280/.307 at the Triple-A level so far this season.

Dodgers Activate Justin Turner, Logan Forsythe

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The Dodgers announced Tuesday that they’ve reinstated infielders Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe from the disabled list today. Fellow infielders Kyle Farmer and Tim Locastro were optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City to create room on the 40-man roster.

[Related: Updated Los Angeles Dodgers depth chart]

Turner will take the field for the Dodgers tonight for the first time this season after missing a quarter of the season due to a broken wrist suffered late in Spring Training. In his absence, Dodgers third basemen have combined to post a woeful .209/.291/.374 batting line in 158 plate appearances. Forsythe, Farmer, and Max Muncy have combined for all of the Dodgers’ activity at third base in lieu of Turner this season, and the largely futile results have played no small role in the team’s 16-24 start to the year.

Forsythe, meanwhile, will be returning to the club after landing on the disabled list exactly a month ago due to inflammation in his right shoulder. He’ll slot back into the mix at second base and share time with veteran Chase Utley there, though he’ll be looking to rebound from a slow start that saw him bat just .174/.224/.283 in 49 trips to the plate before his own placement on the disabled list.

In other Dodgers health-related news, Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times tweets that Clayton Kershaw played catch once again today, though it doesn’t sound as if the lefty is nearing a return to the active roster. Via McCullough, manager Dave Roberts indicated that Kershaw isn’t expected to pitch off a mound on the current road trip. It’s been reported that Kershaw will miss a matter of weeks rather than months, though a specific timeline hasn’t yet been put in place on his return to a Dodgers rotation that will also be without lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu until sometime after the All-Star break.

Dodgers Sign Max Muncy To Minor-League Deal

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The Triple-A Oklahoma City Dodgers have announced that their parent club has signed infielder Max Muncy, apparently to a minor-league deal. He’ll play for Oklahoma City.

The Athletics outrighted Muncy last winter. He played a handful of games with them in Spring Training, but it appears they released him at some point. He has not yet appeared in the Majors or minors in the regular season.

The 26-year-old Muncy has collected 245 big-league plate appearances with the A’s over the past two seasons, batting .195/.290/.321. He’s batted .262/.355/.407 while playing five positions (first, second, third and the outfield corners) over his career at the Triple-A level, indicating that he’s a solid depth option in the high minors, perhaps especially for a team like the Dodgers, who currently have a variety of position players on the DL.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/10/17

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Here are Tuesday’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The Athletics announced that infielder/outfielder Max Muncy has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A (h/t: Melissa Lockard of OaklandClubhouse.com). He’ll head to Spring Training on a non-roster invitation and hope to work his way back into the team’s big league plans down the line. The 26-year-old Muncy has been up and down between Triple-A and the Majors with the A’s over the past two seasons and has batted a combined .195/.290/.321 batting line with five homers in 295 plate appearances.
  • The Tigers announced 22 minor league signings today, and while we’ve previously noted the majority of them, new to the mix are first basemen Brett Pill and Sean Halton. Pill, 32, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since 2013 but spent parts of the 2011-13 campaigns with the Giants. He’s a career .233/.279/.404 hitter with nine homers in 259 trips to the plate. Following his time with San Francisco. Pill jumped to the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization and spent three seasons with that club, most recently hitting .317/.359/.521 with 20 homers and 36 doubles. As for Halton, the longtime Brewers farmhand spent the bulk of the 2016 season playing quite well for the independent Atlantic League’s Lancaster Barnstormers. The 29-year-old Halton got a brief look with the Brewers in 2013, when he hit .238/.291/.396 in 111 PAs. He’s a career .270/.340/.432 hitter in Triple-A.
  • Left-hander Tim Berry announced (on Instagram) that he’s back in the Orioles organization (h/t: MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko). The 25-year-old rated as one of the Orioles’ top 30 prospects from 2011-15, in the eyes of Baseball America, but the past two seasons have been a struggle for him in the minors. Berry logged an unsightly 7.32 ERA in 82 1/3 innings with the Orioles’ Double-A affiliate in 2015, and he posted a 6.32 ERA across two levels between the Padres and Marlins organizations in 2016.
  • Right-hander Deunte Heath has agreed to terms with the Reds on a minor league contract, as Baseball America’s Matt Eddy first reported. The deal comes with a $600K base salary in the Majors, I’m told. Heath, 31, last appeared in the Majors with the 2013 White Sox. He’s pitched just 9 2/3 innings at the big league level but has recently posted a 2.37 ERA in 101 1/3 innings between two campaigns with Japan’s Hiroshima Carp. He also pitched 46 1/3 innings with a 3.11 ERA in the Mexican League in 2016. Cincinnati also picked up catcher Adrian Nieto on a minors pact, per Eddy. The 27-year-old spent the 2014 season with the White Sox as a Rule 5 pick, hitting .236/.296/.340 with a pair of homers in 118 plate appearances. That’s been Nieto’s only big league exposure to this point, as he’s struggled greatly at Double-A and Triple-A in the two subsequent seasons. The 27-year-old switch-hitter posted a meager .195/.287/.257 batting line in 129 PAs with the Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate last year.

Athletics Designate Max Muncy For Assignment

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The A’s announced tonight that infielder/outfielder Max Muncy has been designated for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for outfielder Rajai Davis, whose one-year contract with Oakland has now officially been announced.

The 26-year-old Muncy has been up and down between Triple-A and the Majors with the A’s over the past two seasons, spending time at first base, second base, third base and in the outfield corners at the Major League level. That versatility aside, however, he’s managed just a .195/.290/.321 batting line and five homers over the life of 96 games (245 plate appearances) in green and gold. He has a solid, albeit unspectacular track record in the minors, including a .262/.355/.407 slash in more than 500 plate appearances with the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate. A former fifth-round pick, Muncy has worked primarily as a first baseman throughout his minor league tenure.

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