Chris Taylor is off to a rough start this spring. That’s putting it lightly. Through nine games, Taylor is an atrocious 3-for-31, with a slashline of .097/.147/.290. He has a .063 BABIP, and has struck out in 14 of his 34 plate appearances.
During spring training, when Taylor was struggling, I wrote an article saying I was worried about Taylor. While I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt considering it was just spring, unfortunately, his struggles date back to well before then.
Last year, Taylor slashed .221/.304/.373 with 160 strikeouts and an abysmal strikeout percentage of 35.2 percent. This year, it’s an even worse 41.2 percent, albeit a much smaller sample size.
Taylor is struggling to put the ball in play, and is pretty much a non-factor in the lineup. In Tuesday’s game, he came up with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 6th inning. He ended up striking out, much to the dismay of Dodger fans everywhere, who were hoping Max Muncy, coming off his two home runs and seven RBIs the day before, would pinch hit for him.
After the game, Taylor spoke to the media, and expressed his frustration for his start to the season (per Jack Harris of the LA Times).
“Just a tough game,” Taylor said. “It’s discouraging, but that’s part of the game. It’s a long season. Come in tomorrow and get back to work. I’ve been doing it for a while.”
This is definitely the right attitude, but at some point, something has to give. Dodger fans want Taylor to succeed, and he’s had so many big moments in a Dodger uniform, but they can’t keep throwing him out there to be an automatic out in the lineup.
Fortunately, he’s played great defense this year, and has already appeared at three positions — shortstop, left field and third base.
However, as Dodger fans saw last year, you can’t just keep someone in the lineup because of their defense (talking to you, Cody Bellinger). Taylor is really hoping to turn things around, though.
“You’re always frustrated when you’re not having results,” Taylor said. “I think you got to just keep going and understand that it’s still early in the season. Like I said, just come in with a fresh mindset, keep working, keep your head down, move forward.”
Now that Miguel Rojas is fully healthy, Taylor is likely to lose a lot of his playing time that was coming from the shortstop position, and will be right back in a platoon in the outfield. That means, probably not playing much against righties, and getting his opportunities when the team is facing a lefty.
If he’s able to start putting the ball in play and at least making some improvement on his OBP, he could earn himself some extra playing time against right-handed pitching. But for now, Taylor is no more than a platoon outfielder who can provide depth in case of an injury. Not exactly what you want to see from someone who has three years and $45 million left on his contract.
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