Seemingly every season, a couple players throughout Major League Baseball have a breakout year. This is code for “not-good player plays like an All-Star because baseball is dumb.” There’s breakout years, and then there’s Chris Taylor’s 2017 season.
The Dodgers acquired Taylor from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Zach Lee. It seemed like a classic change of scenery swap. Lee was a failed former top pitching prospect. Taylor topped out as the Mariners’ ninth-best prospect in 2013 according to Baseball America, with the expectation of becoming a capable big league utility guy. He failed to live up to that with Seattle, and they shipped him to Los Angeles.