Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor are consistent starters for the 2020 Dodgers, including in the World Series. Turner and Muncy were both released before joining the Dodgers, while Taylor was traded from Seattle to LA for very little. Each of that trio has developed home-run power with the Dodgers while proving versatile defensively, too. Without Turner, Muncy and Taylor, the Dodgers likely wouldn’t have been the best team in baseball in 2020.
Free-agent signings like Mookie Betts make the headlines. Developing draft picks like Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger lead to long-term success. But it’s players like Turner, Muncy and Taylor developing from afterthoughts into stars that can push a World Series contender over the top. Here’s how each of that trio became a player that manager Dave Roberts can’t take out of his lineup.
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How Justin Turner became a star for Dodgers after release from Mets
Turner has long-time MLB outfielder Marlon Byrd and local coach Doug Latta to thank for the swing that turned him from a utility player into a star.
There was always a leg kick in Turner’s swing, but the advice Latta gave to Byrd about weight transfer was passed along from Byrd to Turner.
“He talks about gaining ground, catching the ball out in front rather than catching it deep, where I’d always been,” Turner said in 2015.
Instead of sitting back and waiting, Turner moved his contact point out further in front of the plate. That allowed him to do two things that many great power hitters do — pull the baseball more effectively while launching more balls in the air. Turner began to show improvement in his final year with the Mets, but they non-tendered him in the 2013-14 offseason, and Turner eventually signed with the Dodgers.
Granted a chance to play frequently with an altered swing, Turner took the league by storm at 29 years old. He batted .340, 60 points better than his career-best. Turner has continued to hit in his entire seven-year tenure with LA, batting .302 in his Dodgers career.
The power came more slowly for Turner after the swing alterations, but he hit more than 20 home runs in three seasons (2016, 2018 and 2019) while continuing to maintain his solid average. In three of his seasons in L.A., he’s finished top-15 in NL MVP voting. He’s made an All-Star Game and won the 2017 NLCS MVP, too. Not bad for a player who had hit only eight HRs in the majors by the time he was 28.
How Max Muncy grew into an MLB home-run hitter
The Athletics released Max Muncy on March 31, 2017. He’d been in the organization since his fifth-round selection in 2012, and he’d had 215 at-bats with the big club. But he hardly hit at all for Oakland, batting .195 with five home runs. Aside from 21 home runs in High-A in the hitter-friendly California League in 2013, Muncy never displayed huge power in pro ball.
He always had versatility, though, which caught the Dodgers’ eye. An ability to play first, second and third base as well as the outfield made Muncy a good organizational depth signing, if nothing else. But Muncy acknowledged the release by Oakland forced him to look to change.
“When I got released last Spring Training, in those couple of weeks I didn’t have a job, I kind of made a lot of mechanical adjustments,” Muncy told MLB.com in 2018.
He, like Turner, advanced in his leg kick. He also appeared to crouch more in his stance than he did with Oakland. Muncy raked the rest of 2017 at Triple-A Oklahoma City, hitting .309 with 12 home runs, but he didn’t get a call-up. Muncy mentioned an increased “confidence” multiple times in his 2018 interview with MLB.com, though, and so when he got his chance in 2018, he showed he was for real.
Muncy homered 35 times for the Dodgers in 2018. He homered 35 times for the Dodgers again in 2019, and he continued to display big pop in the shortened 2020 season. A little swing change, a change of scenery and some confidence made Muncy a World Series cleanup hitter.
Andrew Friedman found a bargain in Chris Taylor, too
Taylor isn’t quite the household name outside of Los Angeles that Turner and Muncy have started to become, but he’s nearly as important to the Dodgers. He can play second base, shortstop, third base or any of the three outfield positions. And he, like Turner and Muncy, was basically discarded before becoming a better player with the Dodgers.
In 2014, Taylor broke in with the Mariners, and he was viewed as an all-glove, no-power shortstop. That worked OK if all he was asked to do was play shortstop, but his bat wouldn’t really play at other positions. A failure to hit for any semblance of power made Taylor expendable in 2016 when the Mariners wanted to add a pitcher to their minor-league system in the form of Dodgers right-handed prospect Zach Lee.
Taylor, like Turner and Muncy, changed his swing. He added launch angle via the changes, which Taylor doesn’t get into too great of detail on. But again, a fresh start coupled with a swing that showed early results gave Taylor the confidence that he could hit and hit for power at the big-league level.
In 2017, Taylor’s breakout season with the Dodgers, he homered 21 times, giving him a total of 22 in his four-year MLB career. He’s followed that up with another 37 homers across the last three seasons while batting better than .250 each year and serving in a super-utility role. Taylor isn’t quite the home-run hitter of Turner or Muncy, but he’s a legitimate doubles threat who can play all over the diamond. That 2016 trade worked out for the Dodgers, with Lee making a total of three big-league appearances for San Diego in 2017 before never returning to an MLB mound.
Taylor displayed what he can do in Game 1 of the World Series. He singled to left his first time up, LA’s first hit off Tyler Glasnow. He walked his second time. Taylor hit an RBI single his next time at the plate as part of the Dodgers’ four-run fifth. And when LA used a pinch-hitter later in the game, Taylor slid seamlessly from second base to left field to close out a win, the perfect day for a good-glove, good-hit superutility player.
