Dodgers News: Should We Be Concerned About Chris Taylor’s Slow Start to Spring?
I don’t usually like to look too deeply into spring stats. Spring training, of course, is for getting back into a groove, and tinkering with things ahead of the regular season. If a player is off to a slow start, it’s usually important to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, “usually” is the operative word there, because not every player enters spring training in the same position.
For Chris Taylor, this spring happened to be a little more important than usual. Taylor was coming off his worst year as a member of the Dodgers, hitting .221 with 10 home runs, 43 RBIs, 160 strikeouts and an OPS of just .677. He also had a 35.2 percent strikeout percentage, by far the worst of his career.
‘Well Chris Taylor is known for coming through in the postseason,’ you may be saying to yourself. In last year’s NLDS, Taylor went 0-7 with five strikeouts.
So, this spring, it would have been great for Taylor to come in, hit the ball, strike out less and show that last year was “an outlier” as Dave Roberts put it. However, he’s done far from that.
Thus far in spring, CT3 is slashing .091/.231/.091 with zero extra-base hits, one run batted in, five walks and 14 strikeouts. He has just three hits in 33 chances, and has gone 0-7 with four strikeouts in the last two games.
Again, I know it’s spring, and if there was ever a time to struggle, it would be now. But CT looks lost at the plate, and is struggling to even put the ball in play. At this point in spring, his strikeout percentage is a whopping 35.9 percent.
Does Taylor have time to turn things around? Of course. Would a few good games before the start of the season make us completely forget about his bad start to the spring? Yes. But at this point, it’s hard not to worry about CT3.
The Dodgers signed him to a four-year, $60 million extension ahead of last season. So, through one year of the contract, it’s not looking like a good one. The Dodgers have to hope that Taylor starts turning things around this season, because if he has another bad year, that contract is going to start looking like a real problem — and more importantly, the Dodgers may have to start looking for a replacement.
Are you worried about Chris Taylor? Let us know in the comments below!
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Hell yes I’m worried. The guy is a hot mess. Maybe he should cut down his swing and stop swinging for the fence on every pitch in any count. Should have kept Kiki.
When Roberts says a guy “looks out of whack” it is time to worry. Don’t think the Dodgers will have the luxury of carrying underperformers this season
No more worried now than all of last season. Dude needs to pick it up soon.
Hell yeah they should be concerned. He was a back up before he came to us. He had a great run, that earned him that fat contract. He has crapped the bed since. He needs to be a back up again. You know they are refretting giving him that contract know. What a rip off in terms of production.
He needs to see a sports psychotherapist
Chris Taylor will not get better as a batter until he quits trying to hit a home run on every pitch and try going the other way some of the time. He has that big swing with an upward cut… he has let hitting home runs go to his head, and as we know, the head is a big part of being successful at the plate.
Try going the other way Chris, it will force you to be “on the ball” and doubles and singles are just as good as homers at this stage of your game. You can either become the comeback player of the year or keep doing what you are doing and be out of baseball.