Sunday Notes: Ever Evolving, (the A’s) Max Muncy Remains In Search of His Groove

Max Muncy is still a work in progress. Four-plus years after he was featured here at FanGraphs in a piece titled, Oakland Prospect Max Muncy is Trying to Find Himself in High-A, the 2021 first-rounder is doing much the same in the majors. Currently slashing a wholly uninspiring 230/.296/.387 with nine home runs and an 83 wRC+ over 284 plate appearances, Muncy remains — as he readily admitted when I spoke to him earlier this summer — in search of his groove. “It’s one of those things that might be ever-evolving,” said the 24-year-old infielder, who put up not-dissimilar numbers after debuting with the A’s last season. “You have to just keep working at it. Every level presents a new challenge — the pitchers are better, so you have to make adjustments — and luckily there is no level higher than this one. Once I get enough at-bats, get to play consistently, I’m going to do what I know I can do. I’m going to be a good player.” Muncy said in our 2022 conversation that he had been doing a lot of experimenting, and to a large extent that has continued throughout what is now more than 2,200 professional PAs. “I’m definitely a tinkerer,” the erstwhile Thousand Oaks, California prep admitted. “Over the seasons, you would see a lot of different setups and swings. It’s one of those things where I want to find the best way for me to hit, and the only way to do that is trial and error. I think I’ve started to narrow it down, which is good, but there are always adjustments to be made and things to do to improve. “A lot of it for me is the mindset,” Muncy went on to say. “When I first got drafted, all I wanted to do was hit homers. That’s just kind of who I am — I always want to do damage, have the big moment — but through the years I’ve learned to channel that a little more. Sometimes I’ll revert back to looking for that big moment, which will cause me problems, but yeah, there have been changes to my mindset. It’s all about using a swing that is geared toward your mindset.” And again, that confluence is something he has yet to settle into. Muncy opined that while there are natural hitters, he doesn’t fit into that category. Rather, he has natural ability and is in constant search of the best swing to take advantage of said ability. As he put it, “I don’t think you’re ever a finished product, to be honest. I think I’ll probably be changing and adjusting, looking to be my best, for my entire career.” You Aren't a FanGraphs Member It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed. We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member. 1. Ad Free viewing! 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Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features! We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it. Hearing that, I reminded Muncy of the old adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Suppose he one day finds himself hitting .300 with 30 bombs annually? Would he want to change anything? “I probably wouldn’t,” reasoned Muncy. “But doing what I’m doing now isn’t .300 with 30. Until I get there, I’ll probably keep changing. I’ll keep trying to find it.” ——— RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS Norm Cash went 11 for 17 against Dave Wickersham. Don Money went 10 for 18 against Ray Bare. Ernie Banks went 14 for 24 against Bob Hendley. David Wright went 14 for 22 against Brad Penny. Jim Greengrass went 8 for 12 against Chet Nichols. ——— Chase Meidroth is an important cog in a Chicago White Sox offense that has scored the most runs in the American League. Playing in his second MLB season, the 25-year-old infielder is slashing a solid .268/.345/.398 with a 112 wRC+ over 624 plate appearances. Moreover, he has left the yard 14 times. In his four previous professional campaigns, the 2022 fourth-rounder out of the University of San Diego never reached double digits in the dinger category. Meidroth will never be a power hitter — at least not in the truest sense. Standing just 5-foot-9 and tipping the scales at 190 pounds, he was likened to a poor man’s Dustin Pedroia when I wrote about him in June 2023. Then a Red Sox prospect, Meidroth came to his current club in the December 2024 deal that brought Garrett Crochet to Boston. How has he grown as a hitter since our conversation three-plus years ago? “I just try to get better every day,” Meidroth told me prior to a game in mid-August. “The goal for me has always just been to be a good hitter and help my team win games. I’m still working on learning how to hit at this level, learning when to take my shots, understanding the situations and what type of at-bat I need to take.” Asked if he is taking his shots more often this year, the righty swinger allowed that he kind of is. “I think so,” Meidroth said. “I’m learning my swing a lot more. Our hitting department has been unbelievable this year, helping me understand how to get to the pull side. Coming up, I mostly just relied on my strengths — letting the ball get deep, getting my hits, taking my walks — but this is a different level. It requires having a different golf bag. It’s good to have all sorts of clubs in there.” ——— A quiz: Two pitchers in Cleveland Indians/Guardians franchise history have logged 300 or more strikeouts in a single season. Who are they? The answer can be found below. ——— NEWS NOTES The first two games of the best-of-five WPBL championship series saw the Los Angeles Queens beat the San Francisco Firebells by scores of 7-6 and 11-7. Caitlin Eynon went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs for LA in the opener, while her teammates Ayuri Shimano and Maggie Foxx each had there hits, including a home run, in the second contest. The Firebells subsequently forced a Game 4 last night with a 10-5 win. Joely Leguizamon left the yard for the staying-alive side. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler was named the Midwest League’s 2026 Broadcaster of the Year. The Greenbelt, Maryland native has been behind the mic for the Lansing Lugnuts since 2009. Brian Wolfe, a right-hander who made 72 relief appearances for the Toronto Blue Jays across the 2007-2009 seasons died on September 16 at age 45. A native of Fullerton, California, Wolfe went 5-5 with a 3.81 in MLB, then spent nine seasons in NPB, going 56-40 while toeing the rubber for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and Saitama Seibu Lions. ——— The answer to the quiz is Bob Feller, who fanned 348 batters in 1946, and Sam McDowell, who notched 325 strikeouts in 1965, and 304 in 1970. ——— Jefferson Rojas was one of the top prospects to change teams at this summer’s trade deadline. A 21-year-old multi-position infielder who went from the Chicago Cubs to the New York Mets in exchange for Clay Holmes and Tyrone Taylor, he boasts a 50 FV and tops his new organization’s farm rankings. I recently asked Rojas’s Double-A hitting coach for a snapshot report. “I’ve known Jefferson, because I worked with him with the Cubs before I came over here,” said Rachael Folden, who served as both a minor-league hitting coach and coordinator for the NL Central club from 2019-2025. “I’ve watched his evolution. He’s a prospect who was signed out of the Dominican and has had to work on his swing year over year. He’s also had to work on some approach things. Now Jefferson controls the strike zone, makes a lot of contact, and hits the ball pretty hard. To watch his process has been pretty cool. “I’ve really enjoyed Jefferson hitting for power with us,” she went on to say. “When he was a young kid he didn’t really leave the yard a lot, so to watch this power explosion that he’s having has been really fun.” On the season, Rojas’s right-handed stroke has produced 27 home runs, as well as a .280/.345/.516 slash line and a 126 wRC+. Promoted from Binghamton to Syracuse after the conclusion of the Double-A campaign, he has gone 8-for-20 with three dingers for the Mets Triple-A affiliate. ——— FARM NOTES Bryan Rincon helped the Reading Fightin’ Phils advance to the Double-A Eastern League championship series, which begin today. Ranked fourth in the Philadelphia Phillies system with a 45 FV, the 22-year-old switch-hitting shortstop drove in five runs in a 21-4 thrashing of the Hartford Yard Goats in Game 1, then went on to homer in the 5-4 Game 2 clincher. Rincon had 26 home runs and a 140 wRC+ in the regular season. The Erie SeaWolves also advanced to the Eastern League championship series (their fifth straight appearance in the finals). The Detroit Tigers affiliate topped the Richmond Flying Squirrels, winning by counts of 18-6 and 5-3. Luke Shliger, an unranked 24-year-old catcher, launched a pair of grand slams in the Game 1 rout. Richmond’s 5-3 loss in Game 2 was notable in that it included a pair of perfect innings from Jackson Flora. Drafted fourth overall this summer by the San Francisco Giants out of UC Santa Barbara, the 21-year-old right-hander was making just his third professional appearance — all of which have been impressive. Following up on his 12-0, 1.06 final collegiate campaign, Flora has fanned 10 batters and allowed just one hit over five frames as a pro. Seong-Jun Kim slashed .287/.392/.522 with eight home runs and a 120 wRC+ over 186 plate appearances between the Arizona Complex League and Low-A Hickory. A native of Gwangju, South Korea who is ranked eighth in the Texas Rangers system with a 45 FV, the 19-year-old shortstop/pitcher made eight appearances on the mound, logging a 0.61 ERA with 18 strikeouts over 14-and-two-thirds innings. ——— Javier López was a huge challenge for left-handed hitters. Over 1,242 plate appearances they slashed just .202/.283/.289 against the sidearming southpaw. Were there any same-sided swingers who he remembers looking especially comfortable against him in the batter’s box? I asked the now San Francisco Giants broadcast analyst that question earlier this summer. “Barry Bonds was one,” replied Lopez. “He was very confident. Another guy I felt was very confident was Todd Helton. But some of the hardest at-bats for me were the guys that didn’t try to hit for power. I don’t know how many times I faced Alex Cora, but I definitely gave up a couple of hits to him. He just hit it where it was pitched, whether it was up the middle or to the opposite field.” Cora went 3-for-4 against him, while Helton, despite looking comfortable in the box, went just 1-for-10 with a walk. As for Bonds… “That I know for a fact,” the longtime reliever stated. “It was 3-for-8, although I like to count it as 2-for-8 because he tried to stretch a single into a double and got thrown out at second base. I struck him out three times.” Any gophers in the mix? “Nope,” Lopez replied. “I’m not in his book.” ——— FOREIGN AFFAIRS Koki Yamaguchi has 31 home runs in just 384 plate appearances for NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines. The 26-year-old outfielder/first baseman has a 170 wRC+ to go with a .279/.328/.597 slash line. Kyle Muller is 7-7 with a 2.45 and a 2.98 FIP over 117-and-a-third innings for the Chunichi Dragons. The 28-year-old erstwhile MLB southpaw also has eight hits, including a pair of home runs, in 40 at-bats. Unlike NPB’s Pacific League, the Central League does not employ a DH. Been Gwak has punched out 186 batters, the most among KBO pitchers. A member of Team Korea in the WBC, the 27-year-old right-hander is 11-7 with a 2.26 ERA, a 2.87 FIP, and a 29.8 strikeout rate over 155 innings for the Doosan Bears. Ji-Chan Kim is slashing .320/.409/.369 with a 116 wRC+ in 493 plate appearances for the KBO’s Samsung Tigers. The 25-year-old centerfielder has 22 steals in 26 attempts and has more walks (59) than strikeouts (38). All but 15 of his 133 hits have been singles. The Baseball Champions League Europe Final Four will take place in Brno, Czechia next weekend. The participants will be Draci Brno (Czechia), Tenerife Marlins (Spain), 1949 Parma (Italy) and Curacao Neptunus Rotterdam (Netherlands). ——— A random obscure former player snapshot: MLB history includes three players who were born in Austria, with Frank Ulrich being by far the most accomplished. A native of Wiener Neudorf, the right-hander appeared in 98 games for the Philadelphia Phillies across the 1925-1927 seasons, fashioning a record of 19-27 with a 3.48 ERA over 406 frames. Of Czech heritage and somewhat curiously nicknamed ‘Uncle Dutch” Ulrich — per a February 1929 report in the New York Times — died of pleurisy and pneumonia at his home in Baltimore. He was just 29 years old. The other two Austria natives are Joe Hovlik, who pitched in 16 games with the Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox from 1909-1911, and Kurt Krieger, who took the mound three times with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1949-1951. ——— The White Sox defeated the Cubs in the 1906 World Series, beating their crosstown rivals in six games. Big Ed Walsh and George Davis stood out for the South Siders, the former earning a pair of wins and the latter notching three of his Series-best six RBIs in the clincher. Left-hander Doc White went the distance in the finale, capping a campaign in which he finished 18-6 with a 1.52 ERA in the regular season. The result of the third-ever Fall Classic — the only one that has featured Chicago’s two clubs — was unexpected. The Cubs had finished the regular season with a record of 116-36-3, while the White Sox went a comparably modest 93-58-3. Moreover, the AL champs were dubbed the “Hitless Wonders,” as their .230 batting average was the worst in the junior circuit. ——— LINKS YOU’LL LIKE Russell Dorsey asked two dozen MLB executives to pick three candidates, excluding members of their own organization or another team’s highest-level executive, whom they viewed as a preferred candidate for a top job. What he learned can be found at Yahoo Sports. MiLB.com’s Jim Callis, Sam Dykstra, and Jonathan Mayo teamed up to give us a breakout prospect for each of the 30 organizations. The Athletic’s Spencer Nusbaum took us inside the revitalization of the Washington Nationals’ once-antiquated farm system. At The Japan Times, Jason Coskrey wrote about how Seibu Lions right-hander Kaima Taira — MLB reportedly looms in his future — uses data and science in pursuit of perfection. At The Los Angeles Times, Kevin Baxter wrote about how Curtis Pride turned his MLB journey into a lifeline for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. ——— RANDOM FACTS AND STATS Xander Bogaerts fell short of a cycle on Thursday despite recording a home run, triple, and double over the first four innings of San Diego’s 9-2 win at Coors Field. Per the Padres radio team, the fastest cycle in MLB happened in the same ballpark. In 1990, Mike Lansing completed the feat in just four frames in a 19-2 Colorado Rockies rout of the Arizona Diamondbacks. MLB history includes five pitchers with at least 100 games with 10-plus strikeouts: Nolan Ryan (215), Randy Johnson (212), Max Scherzer (115), Roger Clemens (110), Pedro Martinez (108). Hat tip to Texas Rangers broadcaster Jared Sandler for this fun fact. Pete Crow-Armstrong has a 1.221 OPS in 67 career plate appearances versus the White Sox. The Cubs stalwart has gone 21-for-59 with five doubles, three triples, and five home runs versus their crosstown club. Shohei Ohtani has a 1.205 OPS in 77 career plate appearances versus the Angels. The Dodgers stalwart has gone 22-for-64 with two doubles, three triples, and six home runs versus the crosstown club. Joe Bauman had 72 round-trippers for the Class-C Longwood League’s Roswell Rockets in 1954. The left-handed-hitting slugger, who never played in MLB, finished the season with a .400/.535/.916 slash line , 224 RBIs, and 150 walks in 669 plate appearances. Bowman averaged 55 home runs from 1952-1955. Mickey Mantle hit the last of his 536 home runs on today’s date in 1968. The Commerce Comet took Boston’s Jim Lonborg deep at Yankee Stadium. On today’s date in 1958, Hoyt Wilhelm tossed a no-hitter as the Baltimore Orioles beat the New York Yankees 1-0. The Hall of Fame knuckleballer went on to finish his career with 143 wins and 228 saves. Players born on today’s date include Bob Detherage, an outfielder whose MLB career comprised his going 8-for-26 (.308) with a home run for the Kansas City Royals in 1980. The Springfield, Missouri native’s lone tater was a three-run shot off of Chicago White Sox righty Randy Scarbery. Also born on today’s date was Tom Tresh, a switch-hitting shortstop/outfielder who played on three World Series-winning Yankees teams across a career than spanned the 1961-1969 season. A Detroit native who attended Central Michigan University, Tresh won AL Rookie of the Year honors in 1962 and went on to finish his MLB tenure with 153 home runs and a 115 wRC+. His father, Mike Tresh, caught in the big leagues from 1938-1949. In 1882, the primary battery for the American Association’s St. Louis Browns comprised Jumbo McGinnis and Sleeper Sullivan. The former was a 25-game winner that year. The latter batted .181 and was known as Old Iron Hands.