The Dodgers on Thursday exercised their 2026 club option on Max Muncy, which will pay the third baseman $10 million next season, his ninth in Los Angeles.
Having been around on the major league team since
2018, Muncy is the longest-tenured Dodger.
The Dodgers’ two previous club option decisions on Muncy were been resolved with a brand new contract. In August 2022, the two sides got ahead of things with a one-year, $13.5 million contract (the same price as his previous club option for 2023) that also included a $10 million club option for 2024. That option was resolved shortly after the 2023 World Series with a two-year, $24-million contract that included a $12 million salary for 2025 and a $10 million option for 2026.
Muncy hit .243/.376/.470 with a 137 wRC+, 19 home runs, and 67 RBI in 100 games. His regular season was interrupted by a left knee bone bruise in July and a right oblique strain in August that cost him a combined 47 games on two injured-list stints. A hit by pitch during the penultimate weekend of the regular season sidelined Muncy for the final four games of the regular season as a precaution.
“With everything that was happening towards the end of the season — a big part of baseball is just having rhythm, especially in the batter’s box,” Muncy said during the wild card round. “Mechanics can be whatever you want them to be, but if you don’t have the rhythm in the batter’s box, sometimes it’s tough to compete. So for me it’s still trying to find that rhythm.”
Muncy played in all 17 games during the postseason, including 14 starts, and hit .214/.353/.411 with a 115 wRC+, 11 walks, and eight runs scored. He drove in three runs during the playoffs, all on solo home runs, giving him 16 career postseason home runs, the most in Dodgers franchise history. One of those home runs was an eighth-inning blast during the team’s Game 7 comeback to win the World Series on Saturday in Toronto.
It’s been a remarkable run for Muncy, who was 26 years old with five major league home runs in 96 games when he signed a minor league deal with the team in 2017. On June 23 Muncy hit his 200th home run with the Dodgers, and he finished the season with 209 home runs for Los Angeles, the seventh-most in franchise history.
