Max Muncy was again on the sphere for the Dodgers on Saturday, three days after being hit by a left-handed pitch on Wednesday. Muncy was additionally hit by a pitch on Saturday, however in a probably much less painful approach on his higher again or shoulder area.

Muncy additionally had a single towards the Cubs, and coming in from lefty Shota Imanaga was a welcome sight. In his profession, the left-handed Muncy has hit pretty properly towards left-handed pitchers with a 120 wRC+, however over the previous two years he's hit simply .165/.287/.382 towards southpaws with an 86 wRC+ . That included a 76 wRC+ towards lefties in 2023, and that was with restrictions on defensive shifts.

Hitting towards lefties is an space for enchancment for Muncy, and one other is his protection at third base, the place he rated properly under common in 2023 by Outs Above Common, Defensive Runs Saved, Whole Zone Score, and Final Zone Score.

Dave Roberts talked about a number of instances this spring {that a} lighter Muncy has appeared a lot better defensively at third base thus far this season. Fabian Ardaya in The Athletic wrote about this earlier within the week.

Muncy talked about his protection, and getting again to hitting the pitch, Saturday after his recreation.

With Shohei Ohtani at designated hitter and signed for 10 years, Muncy realized his solution to staying within the lineup was taking part in higher protection. From Anthony Castrovince at MLB.com on Saturday:

“I've been very open about how I wish to keep right here for the remainder of my profession,” he mentioned. “And let's be actual: There actually isn't a DH spot [with the Dodgers] not.”

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James Paxton and assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness spoke with Mike DiGiovanna on the Los Angeles Instances about how the additional relaxation between begins may benefit the 35-year-old left-hander.

Nick Frasso, who had shoulder surgical procedure in November, additionally had “cleanup” surgical procedure on his hip just lately. Invoice Plunkett on the Orange County Register has extra on this, plus catcher Diego Cartaya has been restricted with again issues this spring however is predicted to be prepared as soon as the minor league season begins.

The common wage in MLB in 2023 was simply over $4.5 million, which set a file for the game, in line with Ronald Blum within the Related Press. However with many free brokers nonetheless unsigned right here in March, there’s some concern that the quantity may drop in 2024.

To that finish, MLBPA govt director Tony Clark spoke with Jayson Stark at The Athletic this week in regards to the chilly warmth for some groups:

However when the dialog turned to many groups' uncertainty about the way forward for regional sports activities networks and native TV income, and the way these golf equipment say their spending has been affected by that uncertainty, Clark expressed skepticism about whether or not that was the actual motive that they had. a lot of it has been off the free agent market.

“The league has been very conscious that today was coming for a while,” he mentioned. “And as you've heard him suggest publicly … they've recommended that they've positioned themselves accordingly to react to that.”

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