Grandal has a historic July

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 1, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Yazmani Grandal put up a July OPS of 1.215 becoming only one of six Dodgers to ever have a July OPS higher than 1.200 with at least 80 plate appearances.  None of them were catchers, no Mike Piazza or Campy Campanella.

Player            Split Year  PA HR RBI   OPS TB
Duke Snider        July 1955 126 11  30 1.217 75
Jeff Kent          July 2007  86  5  20 1.237 56
Frank Howard       July 1962 108 12  41 1.282 83
Babe Herman        July 1929 134  6  24 1.283 92
Pedro Guerrero     July 1985  80  4  13 1.356 50
Pedro Guerrero     July 1987 102  6  16 1.203 56
Yasmani Grandal    July 2018  82  6  14 1.215 48

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/1/2018.

July was an interesting month for the Dodgers. We already saw what Grandal did, and the next four highest wRC+ hitters in July were part-time Dodgers in July. Alex Verdugo who was mostly in AAA, Puig who was mostly on the DL, and Manny Machado who was mostly an Oriole, followed by Chase Utley who was mostly on the bench.

Max Muncy ended July with a decent wRC+ but hasn’t hit a lick in two weeks. Same can be said for Matt Kemp. Joc Pederson had a nice July to go with his great June. Chris Taylor had a bizarre July. Chris drove in a team-high 20 runs but struck out 35% of the time, and his walk rate crashed to 5%.  Justin Turner was probably the worse three hitter in baseball in July before going back on the DL. Cody Bellinger wasn’t able to build on his June and struggled most of the month of July.

If you felt that Logan Forsythe was striking out half the time he was up, you were almost correct. 38% is close enough to 50% for that line of thinking to be validated.  Hopefully, Logan can get squared away with the Twins but has been two years of futility for the one-time stud second baseman for the Rays.

Looking at the numbers, Kiké was bad in July. No other way to spin it unless you look at his BABIP which was a team low of .129. That has to correct itself.

The Dodgers will head into August with a brand new double-play combination in Brian Dozier and Manny Machado once Justin Turner comes off the DL. Where that leaves Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger, and Chris Taylor for two spots is anyone’s guess.

The numbers below came from the Fangraphs Dodger Team Splits: