Max Muncy and Dylan Covey have a bit in common besides that “y” at the end of their name.
Max Muncy and Dylan Covey were both drafted fairly high by the Oakland Athletics and both are now producing at the major league level for other organizations while Oakland got little to nothing in return.
Most Dodger fans by now, know that Max Muncy was cut loose by the Oakland Athletics after being drafted by them in the 5th round of the 2012 draft. Muncy made it to the major leagues for Oakland by 2015 but was unable to impress with a Mendoza type stat line. Muncy followed that up in 2016 with a tepid AAA performance and had an even worse stint in the major leagues. It made perfect sense for Oakland to cut ties with Muncy following the 2016 season. With Max Muncy now the leading OPS hitter in the NL with at least 150 PA, and the ability to play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and the outfield I can only imagine the regret going on right now in the Oakland front office.
I expect most Dodger fans have never heard of Dylan Covey and I only recently stumbled upon him because of a game against the Red Sox I happened to catch last week. Dylan Covey was a 4th round pick for Oakland in the 2013 draft. He had been drafted in the first round by the Brewers in 2010 but elected to deal with type one diabetes and go to college. As a college pitcher, Covey took his time moving up the Oakland ladder and by the summer of 2016 was still in AA. In the fall of 2016, Oakland had to make a decision about whether to add Covey to the 40 man roster and protect him from the rule 5 draft or leave him unprotected. They chose to leave him unprotected and the Chicago White Sox picked him up. Because Covey was a rule five pick he had to stay on the White Sox major league roster all year and he took his lumps. By the time 2017 had ended, it didn’t look like Oakland had made a mistake by leaving him unprotected as Covey ended the season with a 7.70 ERA and his FIP was nearly identical. Covey didn’t make the team this spring and started out in AAA but once some injuries hit the White Sox rotation he was called up and has been the ………………wait for it…………….the ace of the White Sox since he joined the rotation on May 23rd. It is a small sample size but his latest victory was over the Cleveland Indians, giving him three straight victories over three of the best teams in baseball this year, the Brewers, Red Sox, and Indians. To be sure he has not been dominant but I like how his innings have increased with each start from 4 to 5 to 6 to 7 over his past four starts. He has yet to give up a home run. He won’t keep this up but the scouting reports have said the reason for his newfound success is that he ditched his four-seamer for a two-seamer and not only increased his velocity a few ticks but is getting over a ground ball rate over 60%.
Rk Date Opp Rslt Dec IP H ER BB SO HR ERA Str 2 May23 BAL W11-1 W(1-1) 7.0 6 1 1 8 0 3.46 65 3 May28 CLE L6-9 4.1 5 2 3 3 0 3.63 48 4 Jun3 MIL W6-1 5.0 4 0 3 7 0 2.82 62 5 Jun8 BOS W1-0 W(2-1) 6.0 3 0 1 7 0 2.22 56 6 Jun13 CLE W3-2 W(3-1) 7.0 10 2 0 5 0 2.29 60
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/14/2018.
Oakland has one of the tighter budgets in baseball and they can ill afford to simply give away major league talent. Right now, Billy Beane should be evaluating his minor league developers and evaluators and figure out why they weren’t able to see any of this coming. Maybe they simply don’t like players whose last name end in “y”?
The Dodgers and White Sox are glad they didn’t.
Joc is on an extra base hit tear
At this point, you could write about every Dodger starter and find something amazing but today I’ll focus on Joc.
Since Joc Pederson showed up as a full-time player in 2015 we have learned several things about our Joc. He is one streaky dude. One moment (for long swaths of at-bats) Joc looks very much like someone who needs to be in AAA, a long moment later, Joc is all-world and you can’t remember why in the world you thought he should be in AAA.
Joc started the season in one those of frigid streaks and just as you thought is this all there is, he exploded and is now hotter than the Western San Fernando Valley in August.
Joc Pederson is on the second hottest extra-base hit run of his career with at least one extra-base hit in his last five games. His hottest streak which helped get him into the 2015 All-Star hitting contest started on May 31st, 2015 and went six games. This streak is only at five games but it is the best of his career because he has four doubles and five home runs giving him nine extra-base hits in this stretch.
Joc Pederson batted 8th last night and normally that would be an affront for the hottest hitter in baseball, but with everyone except Justin Turner hot in the Dodger lineup, you can’t complain.
Strk Start End Games AB 2B 3B HR OPS 2015-05-31 2015-06-04 6 24 1 1 5 1.512 2018-06-05 2018-06-12 5 19 4 0 5 1.947 2016-06-10 2016-06-14 5 20 3 0 3 1.331 2017-07-24 2017-07-28 4 11 2 0 2 1.720 2017-07-07 2017-07-15 4 16 3 0 1 1.283 2016-08-12 2016-08-16 4 15 4 0 2 1.663 2016-05-06 2016-05-10 4 16 2 0 2 1.125 2015-06-19 2015-06-22 4 13 2 0 2 1.394 2015-04-27 2015-05-02 4 14 1 0 4 1.756
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/13/2018.
Evidently, Max Muncy can do everything
This is getting beyond the ridiculous. Max Muncy came into yesterday’s game with the best OPS+ of any National League hitter with at least 150 plate appearances. He had appeared in 23 games at 3rd base, 18 games at 1st base, and 5 games in the outfield.
He started yesterday at 2nd base. And hit a home run.
He now has the highest OPS on the Dodgers and maybe in baseball at the following positions.
1st Base / .996 OPS
3rd Base / 1.102 OPS
2nd Base / 1.750
Split PA BA OBP SLG OPS as 1B 68 .281 .382 .614 .996 as 2B 4 .500 .500 1.250 1.750 as 3B 74 .283 .419 .683 1.102 as LF 3 .000 .000 .000 .000 as PH 8 .167 .375 .167 .542
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/13/2018.
Caleb Ferguson ignites Dodger offense
Caleb Ferguson has now started two games and gotten a total of seventeen outs but the team has scored twenty-three runs in both of his starts. Can you imagine how many games Clayton Kershaw would have won in a month if the team had scored twenty-three runs in a month back when he was the best pitcher in baseball every month of every season for about eight years?
I’m guessing there are two reasons why Caleb got this start instead of Manny Banuelos. First, they probably wanted him to wash away his debut start so that didn’t linger in his mind. If that was the case they succeeded. It wasn’t a thing of beauty but he managed to get twelve outs and be replaced with a pinch hitter instead of being removed with runners all over the place in the second inning. The second is that if the Dodgers had brought up Manny, they run the risk of losing him. Now, I have no idea how big a deal that might be, but given that he is now the last man standing OKC in the system who can reasonably be expected to start a game it might be a big deal. If Manny had started and then Kenta / Hill / Walker all show back up within the next ten days, they don’t have a place for him at the major league level and they probably would have lost when they tried to return him to the minor leagues. So they went with Caleb and the gamble worked as the offense and bullpen made this an easy victory over a bad team.
We are all living in Muncy town
At least Matt Kemp has done this before. I’m wagering this is the greatest 150 plate appearance stretch of Max Muncy’s professional career and he decided to do it, at the highest level. Baseball is weird, but this, this is beyond that.
Player OPS+ OPS PA Year Age Tm Max Muncy 175 1.011 152 2018 27 LAD Freddie Freeman 173 .998 293 2018 28 ATL Brandon Nimmo 168 .969 179 2018 25 NYM Brandon Belt 160 .950 226 2018 30 SFG Eugenio Suarez 156 .954 215 2018 26 CIN A.J. Pollock 150 .969 166 2018 30 ARI Nolan Arenado 141 .956 263 2018 27 COL
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/12/2018.
Finally, it appears to be Manny Bañuelos time
[Caleb Ferguson was recalled today so everything I wrote below is a moot point]
It has almost been ten years since a Manny was rocking Dodger Stadium but as of right now it looks like the Dodgers will be dipping once again into the Oklahoma rotation and finally giving Manny Bañuelos his shot this coming Tuesday Night against the Rangers.
Manny has arguably been the best starting pitcher all year for Oklahoma but Walker Buehler, Brock Stewart, Dennis Santana, and even Caleb Ferguson all got their shots before Manny. Not that Dennis actually started a game but you get the point.
Name Age ERA GS IP H ER BB SO WHIP BB9 SO9 Manny Banuelos* 27 3.45 11 60.0 57 23 19 71 1.267 2.9 10.7 Guillermo Moscoso 34 4.97 10 58.0 67 32 19 54 1.483 2.9 8.4 Justin De Fratus 30 4.50 7 44.0 50 22 9 22 1.341 1.8 4.5 Tyler Pill 28 3.78 7 33.1 42 14 7 22 1.470 1.9 5.9 Daniel Corcino 27 1.95 6 37.0 24 8 15 34 1.054 3.6 8.3 Brock Stewart 26 2.08 5 21.2 16 5 8 22 1.108 3.3 9.1 Walker Buehler 23 2.08 3 13.0 10 3 4 16 1.077 2.8 11.1 Dennis Santana 22 2.45 2 11.0 10 3 2 14 1.091 1.6 11.5 Caleb Ferguson* 21 2.25 2 8.0 6 2 7 12 1.625 7.9 13.5 32 Players 29.0 3.49 59 521.0 483 202 190 513 1.292 3.3 8.9
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/11/2018.
It is understandable in that Manny is yesterday’s news. He isn’t the Dodgers hot new prospect that was his role with the Yankees when at the tender age of 21 he was their top pitching prospect in 2012 and was ranked as high as # 12 overall by Major League Baseball. That is Walker Buehler territory.
For all that buzz about Manny in 2012 he never pitched for the Yankees. Instead, he has spent his career in the minors and only get a brief major league chance with the Braves in 2015. Manny and Alex Wood were teammates on the 2015 Braves for the month of July. Three years later they will be teammates again.
I’m not a scout but Manny has always had the arm but not the control. In 2018, Manny has a career-best strikeout rate of 10.9 and his walk rate of 2.9 is the best since he was 18 years-old. His walk rate has been a problem for most of his minor league career. The fact it sits at 2.9 is very encouraging for me. I love wild ass lefties who figure things out. He probably hasn’t, there must be a reason why the Dodgers had to be desperate to give him a shot. Or is there? Or has he?
I have no idea how his start is going to work out on Tuesday, but I’d make a big bet it is better than the start that Caleb Ferguson gave the team last Wednesday and better than the debut of Dennis Santana. Not because Manny has a better future in store, but because he should be ready for this start, something I don’t think the kids were. After all, they had a combined four AAA starts in their young careers.
Edwin Rios trying to make up for lost opportunity
By all rights, the call to Oklahoma for Max Muncy should have gone to Edwin Rios the 2016 Dodgers position prospect of the year. The problem for Rios was that he wasn’t at Oklahoma to accept the call, instead, he was rehabbing in Arizona. Rios could only think of what could have been as Max Muncy replaced Justin Turner at 3rd base, then Cody Bellinger at 1st, and then Justin Turner again, all the while watching Muncy mashing like he belonged in the major leagues his whole career instead of being classified as a AAAA player.
Rios was one of the Dodgers highest ranked position prospects not Max Muncy. Rios was the guy who put on a hitting clinic this spring, not Max Muncy. Rios was the guy who also just happened to play the exact same positions as Max Muncy, 1st and 3rd base.
They both tore up the PCL last year but one guy was twenty-three and the other was twenty-six.
In 2017 on the same team in the same league:
- Rios had nine home runs in 169 plate appearances and posted a .901 OPS.
- Max Muncy had twelve home runs in 320 plate appearances and posted a .905 OPS.
- Muncy got his .905 OPS by virtue of a plus .400 OBP while Rios did it more with a plus .500 slug%.
But it is Max Muncy who is in now in the catbird seat that Rios would have rightly expected to be his. It was common talk this spring that Rios could hit, but had no position because of Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger. Now we sit in the middle of June and even after coming off the disabled list, you can see Justin Turner sitting on the bench more often than manning third base as his injury has lingered longer than his disabled list stint. It would surprise no one if he takes another 10-Day DL stint to get more time for his troublesome injury. At least Justin Turner had an injury when Max Muncy replaced him at 3rd base. Max simply shoved Cody Bellinger to centerfield.
Without Max Muncy, I’m not sure where the Dodgers would be, but at least we now know that if something happens to Max, Edwin Rios is ready to get his shot.
Rios finally showed up to play in 2018 on May 25th and has done what he has done his entire minor league career. Punish the baseball. Rios has had multiple hits in seven of the thirteen games he’s been in, including eight extra-base hits in just fifty-two at-bats for a triple stat line of .365/ .411/ .635.
Rios hit two home runs yesterday and Baseball America checked in him.
• Edwin Rios, 1B, Dodgers. Rios is one of the best pure hitters in the minors and he was on fire on Sunday. Rios hit a pair of home runs and a double as part of a 4-for-5 with 2 runs scored and 5 RBIs
JUNE DINGERS
It isn’t your imagination if you think this version of the Los Angeles Dodgers loves the month of June. It was the same for this group in June of 2017 when they slugged fifty-three home runs. Of course, home runs aren’t the only offensive stat, and they actually had a better OPS in July while driving in forty runs less in five fewer games. Pass me the dingers and hold the OPS.
June 2017 Dodger Splits:
Split GS PA HR RBI OPS TB April/March 26 985 28 101 .743 352 May 28 1079 34 151 .791 420 June 28 1097 53 146 .821 454 July 23 869 35 105 .840 374 August 27 1038 36 115 .733 368 Sept/Oct 30 1123 35 112 .710 394
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/11/2018.
2018 is not proving any different for this group. The two biggest changes from the June 2017 team and the 2018 team have been the additions of Max Muncy/Matt Kemp with the subtractions being Corey Seager. That huge subtraction has not made a dent in the Dodgers June offensive production. The Dodgers have already hit more home runs in June in nine games than they did the whole month of April. They are only five home runs back of the thirty-one total in the month of May. In nine games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 2018 Dodger splits:
Split GS PA HR RBI OPS TB April/March 28 1120 25 125 .723 394 May 28 1039 31 102 .690 353 June 9 355 26 67 .966 188
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/11/2018.
This is what the team did in June of 2017:
| Name | GS | PA▼ | HR | RBI | OPS |
| Justin Turner | 17 | 79 | 5 | 13 | 1.211 |
| Joc Pederson | 15 | 69 | 6 | 13 | 1.149 |
| Cody Bellinger | 27 | 119 | 13 | 27 | 1.104 |
| Corey Seager | 21 | 94 | 5 | 15 | 0.99 |
| Yasiel Puig | 22 | 99 | 6 | 13 | 0.965 |
| Austin Barnes | 11 | 48 | 2 | 10 | 0.942 |
| Enrique Hernandez | 15 | 74 | 4 | 7 | 0.719 |
| Chris Taylor | 24 | 108 | 3 | 14 | 0.708 |
| Chase Utley | 18 | 82 | 2 | 7 | 0.694 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 19 | 85 | 5 | 7 | 0.674 |
| Logan Forsythe | 22 | 99 | 1 | 5 | 0.597 |
This is what the team is doing so far in June of 2018:
I’ve been calling this group of Dodgers the Fab Five (Muncy/Kemp/Puig/Joc/Cody) for good reason.
As you can see the Fab Five dominate the top five spots but Chris Taylor is making a push to call them the Sweet Six or Sexy Six.
Six full-time players with an OPS over .900 after nine games in June. No wonder it doesn’t matter who starts, the Dodgers have been pummeling their way to victory with seventy-two runs scored versus forty-seven runs allowed in just nine games giving them a 7 – 2 record for the month of June.
| Name | GS | PA | HR | OPS |
| Joc Pederson | 6 | 23 | 6 | 1.783 |
| Max Muncy | 8 | 36 | 5 | 1.491 |
| Cody Bellinger | 7 | 33 | 4 | 1.172 |
| Yasiel Puig | 8 | 33 | 2 | 1.143 |
| Matt Kemp | 9 | 39 | 3 | 0.988 |
| Chris Taylor | 8 | 40 | 1 | 0.956 |
| Logan Forsythe | 7 | 29 | 1 | 0.75 |
| Austin Barnes | 3 | 14 | 0 | 0.742 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 6 | 28 | 3 | 0.679 |
| Breyvic Valera | 2 | 16 | 0 | 0.661 |
| Justin Turner | 4 | 20 | 0 | 0.617 |
| Enrique Hernandez | 4 | 24 | 1 | 0.583 |
Grandal has passed Mike Scioscia on the LAD Catcher Home Run Leaderboard
Actually, Grandal passed Mike much earlier this year but his two home runs last night made me look up the LAD catcher home run leaderboard and I just now noticed that Grandal had passed Scioscia. Grandal came into the year with 65 Dodger home runs and has hit eleven this year to give him 76. Mike Scioscia had 68. Next up is John Roseboro at 90. Yaz would have to hit fourteen more home runs, a pace he can certainly handle. With Grandal set to be a free agent after this year, there is a very good chance he will end his Dodger career as the catcher with the 3rd most home runs since the team moved to Los Angeles.
This was a quick and dirty list, a list of all Dodger catchers since 1958 who have caught a majority of their games. Some of these will have been pinch-hit home runs, and other positions but it is close enough for this blog. I will need to look at Joe Ferguson in a more detailed matter since he hit a lot of home runs (91) as a Dodger but often played the outfield. Overall Joe hit 96 home runs as a catcher but how many of those were in Los Angeles? A quick look says it was less than 90. I’ll look into this more when I have time to get a precise number of home runs that Joe Ferguson hit as a catcher in Los Angeles.
Player HR From To PA OPS Pos Mike Piazza 177 1992 1998 3017 .966 *2/HD3 Steve Yeager 100 1972 1985 3869 .657 *2/H John Roseboro 90 1958 1967 4505 .713 *2H/7583 Yasmani Grandal 76 2015 2018 1580 .786 *2/H3 Mike Scioscia 68 1980 1992 5057 .700 *2H Paul Lo Duca 57 1998 2004 2361 .771 *2/3H79D5 Russell Martin 54 2006 2010 2713 .761 *2/H5D Todd Hundley 50 1999 2003 822 .826 *2/HD
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/9/2018.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 