Dodgers notes: Max Muncy, Jackie Robinson, hot start

While thinking about how the Dodgers at 11-2 matched their best 13-game start — along with the 1940, 1955, 1981, and 2005 teams — or perhaps thinking about the now three-pitcher team save leaderboard, please enjoy these morning links of various Dodgers news around the web.

Links

• Justin Choi dug deep into Max Muncy’s plate discipline at FanGraphs, noting, “Somehow, someway, Muncy has become an even more extreme version of his patient, slugging self.”
• Andrea Williams at the New York Times wrote about how MLB raided the Negro Leagues without compensation in the years after Jackie Robinson’s debut.
• Russell Carleton at Baseball Prospectus dove into the math, trying to come up with a system to find unexpected jumps in spin rate, coming up with the acronym BAUER for his find.
• ESPN’s power rankings this week have the Dodgers as the No. 1 team in MLB, with the Padres No. 2, just in time for their weekend series.
• Dennis Lin at The Athletic wrote about the Padres nearing the competitive balance tax threshold in 2021. “While the Padres’ payroll has risen dramatically, they now enjoy far more lucrative and varied streams of revenue than in previous eras,” Lin wrote.
• Bill Shea at The Athletic wrote about various novelty foods available soon at MLB ballparks as capacities are set to expand.