Los Angeles Dodgers: Predicting the Dodgers’ 2020 all-stars
By Jason Reed
5. Max Muncy, second appearance
Chances are that you don’t realize how good Max Muncy really is, and that is not even your fault. Most of the league does not realize how good Muncy is because he is not in the limelight on a Dodgers team that has massive stars already.
Muncy has delivered some very memorable moments in his short Dodger career, such as the 18th inning walk-off home run in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series or the now-infamous “Go get it out of the ocean” home run off of Madison Bumgarner in 2019.
What Muncy isn’t known for is being one of the best first basemen in all of baseball. Sure, he plays second too, but with Gavin Lux and Enrique Hernandez, we will see Muncy at first much more than second this season.
If we remove Bellinger and Javier Baez, as Bellinger is now a primary outfielder and Baez has played one game at first base the last two years, Muncy is second among all first basemen in WAR over the last two seasons, trailing just Freddie Freeman.
It isn’t just first basemen, either. Some notable names that Muncy has had a better WAR than the last two seasons: Ronald Acuna, DJ LeMahieu, Jose Altuve, Xander Bogaerts, George Springer, Manny Machado, Kris Bryant, Bryce Harper… need we say more?
His batting average might seem a bit low, but Muncy is a walk and home run machine, which naturally leads to a great OPS.