1:00pm: The Dodgers have announced Muncy’s contract extension.
11:20am: Muncy’s deal will be paid out in the form of a $4.5MM signing bonus and a $1MM salary in 2020, followed by salaries of $7.5MM in 2021 and $11.5MM in 2022, DiGiovanna tweets.
10:44am: The Dodgers and slugging infielder Max Muncy have agreed to a three-year, $26MM extension that contains a club option for a fourth season, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). The $26MM guarantee will cover all three of Muncy’s would-be arbitration seasons (2020-22), while the fourth-year option will give the Dodgers the chance to control a free-agent year for an additional $13MM or take a $1.5MM buyout, per Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times (Twitter link). Muncy is represented by Hub Sports Management.
Muncy, 29, was eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter and had yet to settle on a salary for the upcoming season. His camp submitted a $4.675MM salary figure, while the Dodgers countered with a $4MM offer of their own (as shown in MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker). Rather than go to a hearing, the two sides have instead agreed to a longer-term pact that’ll eliminate the need to ever deal with the arbitration process again while also prolonging the Dodgers’ control over the late-blooming slugger for an additional season.
Few took notice when Muncy was released by the Athletics at the end of Spring Training 2017 and quickly latched on with the Dodgers as a minor league free agent. But Muncy laid waste to Triple-A pitching in ’17 (.309/.414/.491) and found himself in the big leagues with the Dodgers early in 2018. Fast forward two seasons, and Muncy has turned in consecutive 35-homer campaigns while bashing big league pitching to the tune of a .256/.381/.545 slash with 70 home runs, 39 doubles and three triples in 1070 plate appearances (something to keep in mind when prepping the ever-clever “print the playoff tickets!” response to a minor league signing).
Not only has Muncy unexpectedly given the Dodgers a thunderous bat to add to the middle of an already deep and imposing lineup, he’s also proven to be at least a passable defender at each of first base, second base and third base, helping to give manager Dave Roberts some defensive versatility. And while he was initially used as more of a platoon player, the left-handed-hitting Muncy has seen increased opportunities against southpaws, crushing them at a .268/.365/.529 clip in 2019 and hitting a combined .263/.363/.529 in 259 plate appearances against same-handed opponents dating back to Opening Day 2018.
The guaranteed portion of Muncy’s contract runs through his age-31 season, and assuming he maintains anything close to this level of productivity, the $13MM option on his age-32 campaign will also be picked up. That’d position him to reach the open market at the relatively late age of 33, but for a player who didn’t solidify himself as a big leaguer until he’d already turned 27, it’s hardly a surprise to see a willingness to delay his path to free agency in exchange for that first enormous payday.
From the Dodgers’ vantage point, they’ll lock up a key asset on a deal that hardly breaks the bank for them, but it’s still worth noting that the extension could more than double Muncy’s luxury-tax price point in the short term. Muncy would’ve counted for either $4MM or $4.675MM against the luxury tax had he agreed to a one-year deal at one of the two submitted figures, but the average annual value of his extension ($8.667MM) will now be the figure that counts against that tax line.
Depending on how the chips fall in the yet-to-be-finalized trades centering around Mookie Betts, David Price and Joc Pederson, this extension could very well put the Dodgers slightly over the $208MM barrier. Adding Muncy’s extension, adding Betts/Price but subtracting the portion of Price’s contract paid by the Red Sox and subtracting Pederson’s salary would still place the Dodgers a couple million over the line, per the projections of Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez. Then again, the Dodgers would still have time to work to reduce that number if ownership’s goal is indeed to remain south of the tax ceiling. And, of course, as a first-time offender — the Dodgers didn’t exceed the tax threshold in 2019 — L.A.’s “penalty” would amount to a mere 20 percent slap on the wrist for every dollar north of $208MM.
Good for the funky monkey
$1m bonus for “Go get it out of the ocean” line
Classic
Too bad the Dodgers didn’t sign Bumgarner. Pretty sure Bumgarner and Muncy would’ve been BFF’s.
Actually I think you’re right. They have similar gamer mentalities.
This year – “Go get it out of the pool, fool.”
prudent move
Both sides. Muncy’s age when eligible for free agency would have hurt him.
This is what the Tigers should have done with JD Martinez when they realized he was a real steal. Anyways, good for Muncy. Wonder why he took the first year’s money stacked in a bonus. Maybe has a house mortgage to pay off.
possibly. could also be to avoid taxes, depending on where he lives (since if he lives in a no state income tax state like florida, for example, bonus money isn’t subjected to the same taxes salary is).
I was really critical of this guy after his rookie year, but his sophomore year convinced me, what a stud. Great signing
really though
Is this really a three-year extension, or should it be called a three-year arbitration buyout, plus a one-year extension?
it should be. players are only free agents when not tendered a contract. theyre already under control for as much as that long.
It’s an extension of his contract in addition to an extension of his club control. He was set to play on a one-year contract, which is now a three-year contract with a fourth-year option.
I understand the semantics that you’re getting at, but I think it comes into play more when players sign extensions when they’re already on a guaranteed contract.
Mike Trout’s reps, for instance, love to push that he signed a 12-year, $426.5MM extension… but he was already under control for two years and $66.5MM. That’s why we’ve always referred to it as a 10-year, $360MM extension at MLBTR even though other places call it a 12-year extension, which isn’t really accurate.
The semantics don’t matter to most people, although in this instance, I do think it’s fair to call Muncy’s a deal a three-year extension even if he was already under team control. If you want to call it a three-year contract with a one-year extension of club control, though, be my guest! 🙂
Thus concludes an unnecessarily long-winded reply, ha. Cheers!
Not to prolong the semantical agony but how exactly does the Muncy situation differ from Trout’s? Were Trout’s first two years already an arbitration buyout contract, as opposed to a one-year tenders? I think that’s what you are driving at, just making sure I get your point.
Ha, no problem.
Trout originally signed a six-year deal that bought out his arbitration and three free-agent years. Four years into that contract, he agreed to his record-setting extension.
The distinction — in our eyes, anyhow — was that Trout was already signed for a guaranteed $66.5MM when he agreed to his new, current extension. That deal spanned 12 years but included the two preexisting years remaining on his contract. Thus, his contract promised him 10 years and an additional $360MM in new money.
Calling that a 12-year, $426.5MM extension seems disingenuous when he’d have had two years and $66.5MM regardless of the new deal. In my view, that’s a 10-year, $360MM extension. His contract was “only” — that’s a very loose use of the term “only,” ha — extended beyond his existing guarantee by an additional decade and $360MM.
Muncy, meanwhile, wasn’t guaranteed a thing prior to signing today’s deal. He hadn’t even agreed to a salary for the upcoming season, which makes it far more fair to call it a three-year, $26MM extension.
Agreed on the semantics, Steve. Trout was on a guaranteed deal whereas Muncy could have been cut loose without making another penny from the Dodgers at the non tender deadline and was looking to lock in one year.
Huge difference.
I’ll take that as a yes! Trout was a similar situation to Kershaw’s “extension” last year. He was already on an extended contract (with an opt-out) when the Dodgers added the one guaranteed year that changed the terms of all three seasons and erased the opt-out. Not sure if that was called a one year or three year extension at the time, not that it really matters. It’s probably impossible to come up with the perfect terms to cover all of the possible contract permutations.
Trout money was already guaranteed.
Muncy could be non tendered (non extension) and have zero guaranteed money
Wow…dodgers making a lot of great moves . Extending Muncy is great
We rarely extend players. SO GREAT to see.
Lmfao what!? The complaints on the FO is they only re-sign their guys. Turner, Jansen, kershaw… like really?
Complainers will claim anything jeez
Gotta love how well run this organization is.
Then and the Yankees are just heads and shoulders better than everyone else in baseball.
Baseball version of golden state and Cleveland….
Zero World Series titles in the last decade says otherwise.
Thats not necessarily a qualifier. Astros front office is gone. Giants and Red Sox who won 5 titles this decade became obsolete.
It’s been a lot longer than that if you don’t count the roid era world series’.
2 separate investigations from the commissioners office into the only teams to beat them in the World Series suggests there’s a lot more to that than you are pretending
Lol since 2000 the 2 best franchises have won one World Series
I don’t know how Brian cashman has a job has a 200 mill payroll every year yet has 1 World Series in past 20 years
Yeah, thanks to Fox and the McCrooks running the Dodgers into the ground. This ownership is finally running the ball club the right way. If this ownership was in charge the last decade the Giants may not have won anything…And now the Giants won’t…for years to come.
They are well run, but it’s also a whole lot easier when you are a couple of the few very deep pocket clubs that can outspend mistakes when making big $ decisions. Neither has won a WS title either in the last decade (30+ for LAD).
I wouldn’t consider picking up Muncy for basically nothing, and turning him into the player his is today a mistake. LA is a very well organized machine, top to bottom.
Turner, Taylor. Yes the Dodgers spent a lot of money on prospects who didn’t pan out and yes they have resources, but they so often use those resources wisely. They have draft pool limitations just like everyone else but have a stacked farm.
I root against our crosstown rivals 162 games a year plus October, but respect the way that organization has identified and developed talent.
Happy for Max and the Dodgers. Great decisions!
Happy for Max Muncy and his family great job max.
A bit of an underpay in my eyes for a very good player. I think he should’ve asked for 5 years around 10 to 12 million plus annually.
Good deal all around. Life changing money for Muncy, no worries about future arbitration. He can just show up and play.
Yeah – gotta agree with you Halos. Always liked him as an A but the results seemed imminent but never materialised. He worked massively hard in 2017 (especially off season 2017-8) to re-model his swing at one of the agencies – and I didn’t realise until I checked that his 2018 & 2019 numbers were close to identical which debunks a juiced ball year.
If you’ve been out the game for a year and as a late bloomer too – you’re going to wolf down a $26 m three year deal. Or maybe that’s just me – a little short of that number by £25 m + change at the moment….
Another good move by the Dodgers. You see Mr. Theo Epstein of the Chicago Cubs. Extensions can be accomplished. The Dodgers, White Sox and Braves are good examples of getting sheeet done.
Don’t dismiss the big Bote extension!
What? no standard 3 yr 45 million that is common among the FA?
The Dodgers are buying out his arbitration years, not free-agent years. There’s no incentive for them to pay free-agent prices.
“(something to keep in mind when prepping the ever-clever “print the playoff tickets!” response to a minor league signing).”
Thank you, Steve..
what’s not to like? Muncy can rake and play defense…
I wished the Rangers would trade fr Muncy this off-season if the Dodgers got lindor, but that never happened.
Was Never gonna happen. Just because he is from texas means nothing he is a cheap huge bat and key piece to dodgers. Keep dreaming.
I wonder why Daniels did not look at the waiver wire in 2017 when the A’s released him at that time? Remembered him while with Oakland and he surely had the bat potential.
Man, every time I read one of these stories, it keeps screaming for the RS to re-structure the trade. Make it:
Verdugo + Maeda + Joc – enough money to keep LAD under the cap. The RS saved ~ $18M. If Pederson comes in at $8M, they have $10M to spare. In addition, they can trade or cut JBJ at about $2.2M (?).
It seems like way too much for the RS to expect, but even if we had to throw in a non-Casas prospect, it could work.
And, imho, the 2020 RS is better post-trade than it was pre-trade.
So you’re saying that the Red Sox are better with Alex Verdugo and (maybe) Brusdar Graterol rather than Mookie Betts and David Price. I… for the life of me can’t understand that.
I can, because right now, they are both worthless to the sox. They need to get under the luxury tax, because this year would be their 3rd or 4th offense of being over it, and they’d get big fines. So they trade Betts (27 million), and Price (48 million over the next 3 years, so 16 million). They get under the luxury tax while getting a future all-star in Verdugo, and if everything plays out, a nasty “reliever” in Graterol. I can totally understand from the Red Sox perspective.
Plus Mookie said that he is going to test free agency, so even if he was still a red sox, they might’ve not get to keep him.
I probably didn’t make myself clear, since I tend to write in a stream-0f-consciousness way.
What I meant is that, if they can amend the trade to take Maeda instead of Graterol (easy), and coax the LAD to throw in Joc (for money and/or a prospect), then having Verdugo + Joc in the OF is about even with having JBJ + Betts, Maeda is about equal to Price (less quality but more GS), and having some extra money, plus whatever we can squeeze out of a JBJ trade or cut, will leave the RS in better shape than we had been for 2020.
Great deal. This guy has been so good for us.
Interesting commentary added to this story on the CBT implications. What this suggests is the extension for Muncy was being held up by the Betts-Price deal. Can’t see why they’d do that unless it was about waiting for the numbers to be finalized and they’d know if locking up Muncy would put them over. My guess is it won’t, so maybe the cash coming back from Boston is a little more than assumed.
Dodgers have multiple guys who seemed to blossom just when their careers were at a crossroads. Turner too comes to mind.
Turner, Muncy, and Taylor
Nice! Now let’s get the Mookie/Price deal done and it’s all good!
Loves this guy in The Natural
i love muncy glad he here for longer
Ok with this move but thought with his defensive limitations and being not what you would cal a burner on the base paths, he would have been good for a deal to an AL team. Imagined him included in the bargaining for Lindor, Betts or even Boyd from Detroit.
I dont want to drum up conspiracy theories but hell this a trade website so here goes…..
Its really odd Lad would add 4 mill to Muncy when they didnt have too this year; especially considering they were essentially dealing off a guy like Strip (3 mill) for so little to the ANgels at the end just to presumably get right under the tax
MAYBE………they are re-directing this trade where the Angels are now going to get Price cutting the twins essentially completely out of it….
Dodgers just get Mookie Angels Price and Sox Verdugo+ prospects…..
This would get the Dodgers under the CBt easily (and allow that extra Muncy money……
Idk crazy it seems but you always have to follow the money!!!!! Its very oddd to be adding that extra 4 mill to Muncy if they indeed got to the line in the circumstances where the Sox and Angel trades go thru as is….
Love the idea of a Muncy extension but this timing is awfully Odd considering everything…. this could get awfully weird round here soon
I’ll give you crazy… I think it’s much more likely they waited to lock in Muncy’s average annual until they knew where they stood with the CBT. I’ll bet you dollars to Fritos that when it’s all added up they will come in just south of the line.
Oh I bet they do too but todays agreement with Muncy adds 4 mill to the pot making it that much harder- It was already very tough as evidenced with Stripling
If the Sox try to side step I wouldnt be surprised if Price was an Angel on Friday and the Twins get completely taken out of it…… there was a time 2 weeks ago many thought it was crazy to get Mookie and Price on the Tuesday after Super Bowl
My point here is they probably don’t add that $4M unless they know it isn’t going to put them over the line. The timing doesn’t seem like a coincidence. My not so crazy theory as a result is that Boston is coughing up more cash to go along with Price than current predictions of “half” suggest. We’ll know when we see the numbers. The over/under is $48M. Place your bets.
Instead of the cash I wish they would just include Kiki at 6 mill this year- Bos is 18 mill under this year- Its hard to think at this point if re done Boston woul ever pay more than the 48 mill so ill take that under; kiki for just this year makes a ton of sense though
Of cource coupled with Graterol problems we might have to add a prospect to this equation (Cartaya?)
Would be tough to find a buyer for kiki at 1/6 so its almost now or never with him…..hes really our only semi moveable piece left that we wouldnt have to attach prospects too that could lower our CBt
I don’t think so. Hernandez has some surplus value at $6M so if he’s included the Sox would need to come up with more not less to compensate. I suspect he and/or Taylor might become expendable at some point though especially if they need to make a significant July move, which seems pretty likely. I’ll believe what Kasten said about paying the CBT this year when I see it, and not before. So, I’ll take the over and we’ll see who wins the Twinkie.
Or you can delete your essay and say you just want the angels to get Price and will claim anything to justify your opinion
There’s zero reason to abandon Price at 16M a year. Keep dreaming
I dont want that though ….. Just spitballin here… This is a rumors website here isnt it Common 🙂
Blue – I agrree we slip right under somehow its just odd to bump Muncy up 4 mill ….its gonna be razor sharp to get under… I agree Taylor or Kiki prolly has to go at some point- I actually think Renigfromwould be a better Kiki at a fraction of the price
It will be tight for sure but I’m sticking with my original wager. The Boston-Twins-Angels trades should be finalized soon, then we’ll know.
Did they measure the circumference of his head before extending him?
Now do the same with Bellinger. 10/350
Love me some Muncy
And the constant talk of the luxury line is such an over story. Kasten has said they are going to blow the line out of the water. Who cares if they’re 500k over or under? such a non story because the cubs pretend it’s a big story
Welcome to a well run franchise
LMAO! How many championships in the last 30 years??? That’s what I thought!
He should’ve held out for more.
I wonder if Cubs fans look at Muncy and think, this is what Schwarber should have been.
An absolute bargain for a quality player.
My 5 yo will be very happy to hear this. Big fan of Max Muncy ever since the HR in the bay.
The Dodgers-Giants rivalry won’t be as fun without Mad Bum.