Oakland A's 2016 Player Profile: Max Muncy

It’s June, and with a plethora of names on the DL, we’ve already gotten to see a gaggle of Baby A’s get called up for their shining moments of fame in the Bigs. It’s a peek into the future, a glimpse of what’s to come, and Max Muncy is one of those bits of intrigue we’ve been able to get a sneak preview of. Muncy played in 45 games for the A’s last year and has made it back again this season. How long until he’s full-time on the Oakland squad? His time could be arriving very shortly!

Though the most homers in a season came from Muncy’s stint in Class-A Advanced Stockton (21), he’s still maintained a solid combined .270/.377/.430 line as he reaches the middle of his fifth season in the minors. He's got great strike zone discipline and has generated .62 walks per game over those five seasons. In 2016, he’s already walked 23 times in 44 games for Nashville and 4 times in his 5 stints in Oakland. While Muncy has yet to find his breakthrough point, he seems to always be on that cusp. With a bunch of poopy stuff (technical term) so far this season for the A’s, there's no better time than now for a new light to shine.

The six-foot, 210-pound, 25-year-old Muncy is a native of Keller, Texas, a town somewhere in the northern part of the gigantic state, between Dallas and Fort Worth. In 2009, the Cleveland Indians selected Muncy in the 41st round of the draft. Declining the offer, Muncy instead took off for Baylor University, a wise choice as it gave him the opportunity to break Baylor Bears records left and right.

In his freshman year alone, Muncy broke the school’s single-season records in home runs (11), RBI (53) and multi-RBI-games (17). In his Baylor career, he’s also tied for eighth-most walks in a Big 12 season (12 in 2011) and third in Big 12 career put outs (478). All this while not even making it to his senior year. In 2012, the A's selected Muncy in the fifth round of the MLB Draft (most likely because Baylor’s color scheme is also green and gold, so Muncy wouldn’t need to get used to a new set of team colors). In 2015, he got his first start with the squad when the A’s placed Ben Zobrist on the 15-day DL.

While Muncy has been playing baseball his whole life, the only championship team he’s ever been a part of was with Double-A Midland in 2014 when the squad won the Texas League Championship. Fitting that it would be in Muncy’s home state! That season, Muncy hit seven dingers, two of which were grand slams ... on back-to-back days.

Muncy stated he’s been able to greatly improve his defensive abilities with help from Brett Lawrie last season. You don’t say.

Muncy is afraid of needles, his favorite baseball movie is The Sandlot and his favorite late-night snack are honey butter chicken biscuits from Whataburger. Mmm ...

What we’ve gotten to see of Max Muncy so far has been promising, and it shouldn’t be too long until we get to see what the next chapter of his story holds.