today: According to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, Taylor has reversed his decision to retire. Instead, he suffered a fractured left forearm in Wednesday’s game against Triple-A Salt Lake and was placed on minor league injured reserve.
May 22nd: Two-time World Series Champion chris taylor According to the MiLB.com transaction log, is scheduled to be deprecated. He was in Triple-A with the Angels.
Taylor played parts of 12 seasons in the major leagues. A graduate of the University of Virginia, he was a fifth-round pick by Seattle in 2012. The right-hander played a bench role with the Mariners for several seasons before being traded to the Dodgers. zach lee As then-GM Jerry Dipoto said, this seemingly trivial trade will come back to haunt the Mariners. please call it A year later, “I made the worst deal ever.”
Taylor wasn’t much of a factor in the first half of the season with the Dodgers, but things changed after he was recalled from Triple-A in April 2017. Taylor batted .288/.354/.496 with 21 home runs and 34 doubles in 140 games. He carried that form into the postseason, posting a nearly .900 OPS in his first game in October. That included two home runs in a five-game winning streak against the Cubs in the NLCS, for which Taylor was named co-series MVP with the Cubs. Justin Turner.
It was the beginning of five years in which Taylor was a key part of the Dodgers’ highly successful teams. He hit .258/.340/.450 with 57 home runs from 2018 to 2021, and was named an All-Star in that year’s Finals. He will earn his first World Series ring in 2020 when Los Angeles defeats the Rays. Ironically, that was one of the only postseasons in which Taylor didn’t put up good numbers, but he would go on a complete tear the following October.
Taylor had a signature moment when he hit a walk-off home run. Alex Reyes Defeat the Cardinals in the 2021 Wild Card Game. It was the first of four he hit in the postseason, even though the Dodgers were bounced by the Braves in the NLCS. Taylor carried that momentum into his first trip to free agency, ultimately re-signing a four-year contract with $60 million guaranteed.
This was an obvious move for the Dodgers at the time, but it didn’t work out the way Taylor and the team had hoped. He missed time in each of his first three seasons as his production decreased. His games always involved a lot of strikeouts, so the decrease in extra-base hits made him a below-average hitter. Still, he remains a valuable asset in the clubhouse, and the Dodgers will win the World Series again in 2024 when they defeat the Yankees in five straight games.
Taylor spent the first six weeks of the 2025 season on Dave Roberts’ bench. He was released in May and was supposed to join the Angels on a major league contract. He broke his hand early in his tenure with the Halos and spent most of the year on the disabled list. He batted .186 in 58 games between the two clubs, but his early season performance would earn him his third ring as the Dodgers repeated as champions. Taylor reached the milestone of 10 years with the team last August, despite being on the disabled list.
Taylor re-signed with the Angels, but was unable to earn a roster spot out of camp. After 32 games with Triple-A Salt Lake, he apparently decided he was ready to call this a career. It is unknown if this was due to some kind of injury. Taylor played Wednesday and was ejected in the sixth inning after being hit by a pitch in what was likely his last at-bat as a professional.
Over 10 years in the majors, Taylor had 860 hits and 110 home runs. The league average batting average for his entire lineup was .248/.327/.419, but at his peak he was an above-average hitter for five straight seasons. Despite the quality of his games, his .247/.351/.441 line in the postseason was better than his regular season mark.
Taylor appeared in two World Series champions and four National League pennant games with Los Angeles, three of them as an at-large player. He also suited up as a versatile defender at six positions: all three outfield positions and the infield position to the left of first base. Baseball Reference and FanGraphs credit him with winning roughly 16 to 17 more games than the players he replaced and earning nearly $78 million. We congratulate Taylor on his wonderful run and wish him all the best in his retirement.
Image courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images.
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