Chris Taylor has been a mainstay on the Los Angeles Dodgers since he arrived via trade in 2016 and burst onto the scene in 2017 after a slow start to his Major League career.
A fifth-round pick by the Seattle Mariners in 2012 MLB Draft, he became an integral part of the Dodgers’ early successes in the late 2010s, including three World Series runs in 2017, 2018 and 2020.
The Dodgers rewarded Taylor for his service over the years with a four-year, $60 million after the 2021 season, the same year he received his first All-Star nod.
That contract hasn’t aged particularly well for the Dodgers as Taylor’s production has fallen off quite a bit since 2021. The 34-year-old has always been strikeout prone and a streaky hitter even during his best seasons with the Dodgers, but he hasn’t been able to out-produce those negative aspects of his game in the same way he was capable of in the past.
Taylor is hoping to put a poor 2024 season behind him, but is also hoping to carry over some of the positives he had toward the end of the season.
Over the offseason, he worked with the Dodgers coaching staff to recapture specific aspects of his mechanics from when he was most successful. It has been a targeted approach rather than trying to fix every single aspect of his swing, which Taylor believes got him into trouble in 2024.
“I think really just trying to continue to build off how I ended the season,” Taylor said. “I came up with a plan with our hitting coaches of a few things I really wanted to work on and get right. Some things that, when I’ve been at my best, kind of getting back to those things.
“I think I’ve fallen into a trap of moving the target around and moving focus. That’s been something I really want to work on, is maintaining that focus on a couple of things and not shifting it all over the place.
“That’s kind of what we’ve been working on in the cage and hoping to obviously have a bounce-back year for me. Last year was extremely disappointing, so I’m motivated to hopefully improve this year and get on the field more.”
Taking a more direct path to the ball with his hands is one of the most prominent changes Taylor is attempting to make. His signature swing, which often looked as if he was trying to scoop under the ball with his bat, is something that he tried to get away from in 2024 and that change seems to have carried over into this season.
“It’s mechanical stuff,” Taylor said. “Without getting into too many specifics, it’s fixing the bat path. I could be a little under fastballs a lot, so trying to be more direct. There are some things with my mechanics, where my hands are firing from, the angles of my bat.”
After batting .170/.281/.263 through 70 games, Taylor did show some progress in September with a .333 batting average and .822 on-base plus slugging percentage in his final 17 games of the 2024 season.
Chris Taylor hosts 2nd annual Polar Plunge
The CT3 Foundation hosted its second annual Polar Plunge event at Manhattan Beach to raise funds for the Friendship Foundation and Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.
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