MILWAUKEE -- As a franchise and as a baseball brand, the Los Angeles Dodgers have everything going for them.
Desirable market? Check -- L.A. is one of America's biggest cities and has the glam factor of being the entertainment capital of the world. Climate? Didn't you hear? Seems it never rains in Southern California. Iconic status? The Dodgers were one of the most recognizable teams in sports even before they carpetbagged it to the West Coast in 1957. Money? That franchise is swimming in gravy -- it's what comes with all of these other factors.
On top of everything, the Dodgers are smart. You can argue about how long this has been the case, but there's little debate about it now. When Andrew Friedman took over and installed the think tank that now oversees things for the Dodgers, they became a fully modernized operation, with best practices in every aspect of running an organization.
Given the inherent advantages the Dodgers already had, it almost seems unfair for them to be run as efficiently as a small-market franchise. The very least they could do is wallow in excess. The Dodgers now not only can outspend almost every other team in free agency and in analytical operations, they can do so in a targeted fashion and with purpose. They can cast the widest of nets in searching for talent, both obvious and hidden.
One of the manifestations of this last trait is that L.A.'s souped-up operations team has been uncanny in its ability to pull players from other organizations' scrap heaps and turn them into impact contributors. This is where Max Muncy enters the story. You'd have to be a pretty hard-core fan to honestly be able to state that before this season, you knew who Max Muncy was, much less that he'd be a go-to interview guy in the postseason podium scene. Muncy, as it turns out, is as surprised as any of us.
"Absolutely not," Muncy said. "I never would have thought I could be in this kind of position, playing for a team like the Dodgers in the playoffs."
Muncy was a fifth-round pick by the Oakland Athletics in the 2012 June draft after a three-year career at Baylor, where he hit .315/.408/.501 and walked in just more than 12 percent of his plate appearances. The fifth round isn't premium-pick territory, but it is a round where teams routinely find bona fide prospects. Just looking at Muncy's primary position of first base, Brandon Belt, Chris Davis, Ryan Howard, Willie Upshaw, Doug Mientkiewicz, J.T. Snow and Rhys Hoskins all were fifth-round selections, according to the draft database at Baseball-Reference.com.
In other words, we have to be careful not to overlook the fact that Muncy has a fair amount of baseline talent. It's not like the Dodgers can turn pumpkins into carriages. Nevertheless, there are scores of players drafted in the first five rounds over the years who never panned out at the big league level. Up until spring of last season, Muncy appeared to fall into that category.
"You know, I struggled my time in Oakland," Muncy said. "I wasn't good enough to play for a team that was finishing 20 games out of first place the couple years I was there. And I get picked up by these guys and got a [second] chance given to me."
Muncy rose quickly enough through the Oakland system, reaching the majors in 2014 at the age of 24. His minor league slash line tells a story: .276/.382/.438. The average, in context, would be acceptable with a good slugging percentage. But .438 is not going to turn many heads in 2018 baseball, especially when a guy's best position is first base. But that middle number -- the on-base percentage -- is the one to pay attention to. It's a number that, no matter what has happened elsewhere on his stat sheet, always has been there.
"I think it's a combination, but I think most of it probably is just his innate ability to recognize a strike versus ball, and the value of not making an out," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Here's what Baseball America said about Muncy before the 2016 season: "Muncy's a natural hitter. His ability to control the strike zone is as good as anyone's in the system and is his biggest asset, along with his hitting left-handed. His short swing is tailored for his gap-to-gap approach, and while he's never been projected as a significant power threat, the A's would nonetheless like him to swing more authoritatively when given the chance."
That was just 2½ years ago and only some of it sounds like the player Muncy has become. He hit .195/.290/.321 over 96 games and two seasons for Oakland, while continuing to bounce back and forth between the majors and minors. He was taken off the 40-man roster after the 2016 season, received a non-roster invite to A's spring training in 2017 and was released just before the start of the season. The move created nary a ripple. Muncy went home and tried to chart out a next step. He was 26 years old.
Well, you know what came next. Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi, who worked under Billy Beane in Oakland when Muncy was in that organization, offered him a minor league deal. Given another chance, Muncy revamped his approach to become more of a fly ball hitter and more selectively aggressive. He performed well in Triple-A for the Dodgers last season, got another shot at the big leagues this season and, 16 months after reaching a career crossroads, Muncy finds himself as the home run leader on one of baseball's marquee teams.
As Muncy emerged as a potential All-Star and baseball's biggest Cinderella story in 2018, there were a number of pieces written about his turnaround in various outlets. He changed his stance and approach, becoming less upright and more aggressive. It sounds simple, but of course, it isn't. For Muncy, none of the physical adjustments is where the story lies.
"It's been documented this year, all the changes I had made," Muncy said. "The most important ones being mental. So, to be able to get to this point, has been an incredible reward and incredible journey."
It's hard to say whether we've had more of these successful reclamation projects than we used to. If so, analytics could be a part of it, helping players figure out what has worked and what hasn't, and how to build off their strengths. For the Dodgers, whatever the process, it has worked so well that it makes you wonder whether there is some magic bullet that helps L.A. find these unpolished diamonds. Because players just seem to do better after they pull on that Dodger blue.
This organizational strength was set in motion by the signing of Justin Turner to a minor league contract in February 2014. That was under the previous front-office regime and Turner's career-changing alterations to his game were largely generated by his own will, a chance meeting with former big league outfielder Marlon Byrd, which led to his work with hitting guru Doug Latta. Turner's career OPS before that was .684. Since then it's .889.
Last season, Chris Taylor was the Dodgers' surprise breakout veteran. He became an every-day player last season, his first with L.A. but fourth in the majors. He came to the Dodgers with a career OPS of .593; since then it's .802. Teams spend millions via free agency to get the kind of production the Dodgers have gotten from Taylor and Muncy the past two seasons. Like Muncy, Taylor was a fifth-round draft pick.
"For me, it's actually very gratifying to see a player like him, as well as Chris Taylor last year, to be that kind of grinder, blue-collar guy that just gets an opportunity and capitalizes and really immerses himself, entrenches himself in our ballclub," Roberts said. "[He is] somebody who we really count on. A credit to his hard work, perseverance, all those descriptors, but I'm very proud of him, and we wouldn't be here without him."
If there is a common thread between the emergence of Muncy and Taylor, one that might guide other teams to other renovation candidates, it's probably tied to both players' embedded knack for plate discipline. It's not a trait that ought to be too hard to spot, but apparently it is. Even Oakland -- the Moneyball guys -- gave up on Muncy.
As you wind your way through those Muncy slash lines listed above, you'll probably notice that no matter what the status of his batting average was, or how much his fluctuations in power have led to the ups and downs of his slugging percentage, that on-base average has without fail hovered around 100 points above his batting average. That's something teams should have gravitated toward.
It's generally believed that if you want an organizational philosophy built upon on-base ability, plate discipline and pitch recognition -- however it manifests -- you need to draft it or acquire it because it's an awfully difficult trait to teach. Players have it or they don't. For the Dodgers, targeting such players is a fit for their organizational philosophies for producing offense. And their development staff, whether it's minor leaguers or major leaguers, is adept at leveraging that talent -- and it is a talent -- into remaking a player's overall production.
"This year was my first year to be able to go to spring training with them and be around the big league staff and the big league players," Muncy said. "For me, it was more just the way they welcome everyone in. It didn't matter if you had 10 years in the big leagues, or no days in the big leagues. At least for spring training everyone that came in there, they were treated all the exact same. Everyone was given the same opportunities."
Muncy's ability to work the count, to lay off pitches he can't handle, to take walks even when he wants so badly to swing, has always been a foundation for his game. It was a similar case for Taylor, who had a .400 on-base percentage over six minor league seasons. He actually has been a little more aggressive since he arrived with the Dodgers, and while that has led to some slumps in terms of making contact, he has been much more of an extra-base threat. But it still began with that baseline trait of plate discipline.
"I chased just as many pitches as everyone else," Muncy said. "When you get to two strikes, you try to battle, and sometimes you come out on top, sometimes they come out on top. But as far as, you know, the discipline, that's just something I'd always had in my playing career, from college, high school, early stages in pro ball. That was just something that I'd always had."
There is an underrated advantage in deploying an organizational style of offense, even it is does put you at risk of having too many players with overlapping skill sets. It helps focus your efforts at scouting other organizations. Flag the guy with innate discipline, then figure out if you can fix the rest of the player's game.
"We talk about not making outs, not trying to walk," Roberts said. "Just understanding the value of not making an out. I think that [Muncy] understands that, and his ability to see the ball out of the hand is pretty special."
By recognizing those special traits, the Dodgers have ended up with All-Star-level hitters, in Muncy and Taylor, who are making fringe-level salaries. Thus, the Dodgers can utilize their massive resources in other directions. It hardly seems fair. But when it finally pays off in a championship -- perhaps as soon as this month -- it'll be in no small part because of the unheralded stars supporting the neon-light stars.
As for Muncy, he has emerged as a player who can hang with the stars. Even the biggest ones. In his postseason debut, he homered and walked three times in Game 1 of L.A.'s division series win over the Atlanta Braves. In doing so, he became the first player to put up those numbers in a postseason game since Babe Ruth in the 1926 World Series. Young players might not be attuned to baseball history, but they do perk up when Ruth's name is mentioned.
When asked if he had ever been compared to Babe Ruth, Muncy deadpanned, "Besides now? Never."
These are the rewards of a successful reinvention.
"That's something that's cool regardless of the situation," Muncy said. "I mean, if it's just a regular-season game, that's something that's really cool to me. But to have that happen in a postseason game, even more special."