A look at the urgency of the Dodgers’ roster moves of the last week, as the position-player group is back at full strength
Teoscar Hernández was activated off the injured list Monday, one day after Tommy Edman returned from the IL. James Outman was optioned on Monday, but the corresponding move on Sunday was releasing Chris Taylor, who was a long time fan favorite who did so many incredible feats on and off the field with the Dodgers.
Houston Mitchell at the Los Angeles Times wrote a tribute to Taylor, which included several key moments during his tenure in Los Angeles. He gave us the first-pitch home run to lead off the 2017 World Series, when so many of us were certain that was just the beginning of the World Series celebrations to come. He made an absolutely incredible catch in Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS to preserve the victory over the Milwaukee Brewers the next season. And he hit the game winning, walk-off home run to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the Wild Card game in 2021 to advance the Dodgers to the NLDS.
Taylor and his wife Mary have done so many charitable things off the field, from helping raise money for the wildfire relief in L.A. to children in hospitals and all sort of great things in between.
Taylor will always be remembered for his heroics, and will always be a part of Dodgers history.
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Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic went into reasons for the timing of Austin Barnes and Taylor getting cut:
“We didn’t feel like coming into the season, this was something that we would necessarily be doing in May,” Friedman said. “But you learn things and things change and things evolve and play out. We just have a lot more information at this point in May than we did before the season. I wouldn’t say it was something that we thought was a fait accompli, and was necessarily going to happen. But with where we were, all things factored in, while not easy, we felt like it was the right thing to do.”
Ultimately, urgency is required this season. As the saying goes, you can’t win a division in the spring, but you can lose it. The NL West is much more competitive as a whole this season than in years past, and if the Dodgers want to return to the World Series this season they have to be incredibly forward thinking.
Leo Morgenstern over at FanGraphs goes into detail about how catchers are getting better in the other areas of the game that aren’t crouching behind the batter, including Will Smith. The Dodgers backstop is ranked third among major league catchers in wRC+ Impact Score. The addition of Dalton Rushing should help Smith stay up there offensively as the season wears on, as his second half numbers always fall off.
