When a team acquires a player – whether it be through the draft or via trade – it is, in almost every sense of the word, a crapshoot.

If it’s through the draft, a team is basing their selections (and dishing out their draft pool money) on the word of a handful of scouts who, although very good at their respective jobs, are often wrong more often than they are right. It’s not that the kids that they discover aren’t good ball player, quite the contrary, in fact; they’re all good or they wouldn’t even be in the draft to begin with. No, the difficulty is finding that one golden nugget in an enormous mountain of sand, with the grains of sand being the tens of thousands of other very talented young baseball players from colleges and high schools across the country. And that’s just the beginning. Over the next several years and from among more than 6,000 minor leaguers, all of them are fighting for exactly 750 major league jobs.

If it’s via a trade, although the end numbers don’t change, those being traded are usually in the high minors who have withstood the natural attrition of the proverbial cream rising to the top and a team’s chances of finding that golden nugget are a bit better, albeit only slightly.

Now this certainly isn’t to say that several of a team’s draft picks won’t make it to the Show with the team that drafted them, it’s just that it doesn’t happen as often as teams would like – if for no other reason than to maintain team (and financial) control of their draftees through their option and arbitration years up to free agency – again, if they even make it that far.

In 2010, then Dodgers Director of Scouting and Development Logan White skillfully defied the odds when he managed to select 18-year-old right-hander Zach Lee out of McKinney High School in McKinney, Texas. The skillfulness came into play because Lee had already committed to Louisiana State University (LSU) where he had been guaranteed the starting quarterback job for the Tigers. As such, all 27 teams drafting ahead of the Dodgers weren’t willing to risk not being able to sign Lee, thereby wasting their first round pick. Sure enough, when the Dodgers went on the clock, Lee was still on the table and White jumped all over the young right-hander. And though it ended up costing the Dodgers a then franchise-record $5.25 million signing bonus, Lee would be tossing baseballs for the Dodgers organization instead of footballs for the LSU Tigers.

Two years later during the 2012 MLB First-Year Player Draft the Seattle Mariners selected a shortstop out of the University of Virginia. That shortstop was a then 21-year-old named Chris Taylor.

In their unknown parallel universe, Lee and Taylor both rose through the ranks of their respective organizations quickly (that golden nugget thing), with Lee making it to the Dodgers Triple-A affiliate Albuquerque Isotopes and Taylor to the Mariners Triple-A affiliate Tacoma Rainiers – both during their 2014 seasons. Taking this fate thing one step further, both the Albuquerque Isotopes and the Tacoma Rainiers belonged to the Pacific Coast League.

On July 25, 2015 and by virtue of Dodgers co-ace Zack Greinke needing to miss a start for the birth of he and wife Emily’s son Bode, Zach Lee made his major league debut in arguably the harshest environment possible – Citi Field in Queens, New York against the Mets.

It did not go well.

Lee allowed seven runs on 11 hits (including a home run) with a walk and three strikeouts in his 4.2 innings pitched. And although no one knew it at the time, the hard-throwing (then) 23-year old Plano, Texas native would not make another major league appearance for exactly 628 days … and it would not be with the Dodgers.

Lee made his only major league appearance with the Dodgers on July 25, 2015 against the New York Mets at Citi Field. It was, in every sense of the word, a disaster.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

On June 19, 2016 the Dodgers traded Lee to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Taylor. Lee would subsequently be designated for assignment by the Mariners on December 3, 2016 without having made one major league appearance and was claimed off waivers by the San Diego Padres 10 days later.

Lee made his first major league start with Padres (and the second of his career) on April 12, 2017 at, of all places, Coors Field in Colorado against the Rockies. This time it did go well. So well, in fact, that the now 25-year-old tossed six shutout innings while allowing only two hits. He did, however, walk four but also struck out three. Unfortunately, Lee did not fair so well in his next two appearances – both in relief – in which he allowed five runs in a combined 2.2 innings. He was optioned back to Triple-A El Paso on April 23 and placed on the seven-day disabled list on May 15 for an undisclosed injury.

On the other side of the parallel universe and nearly a year to the day earlier (July 24, 2014), Taylor made his major league debut with the Mariners against the Baltimore Orioles at Safeco Field in Seattle.

It did go well … sort of. Although the Mariners lost 4-0, the (then) 23-year-old Taylor played all nine innings as the Mariners shortstop and went 1-for-3 at the plate, with a pop foul out, a line drive single to center and a strikeout. But unlike Zach Lee, the Virginia Beach, Virginia native would remain up with the big club for 47 games, posting a slash-line of .287 / .347 / .346 for an OPS of .692. And though Taylor did not hit any home runs during his 151 plate appearances in 2014, he did have nine RBIs. Unfortunately, the extremely hard-playing Taylor would suffer a series of injuries over his next two seasons while splitting time between Seattle and Triple-A Tacoma. But here again, although Taylor posted a slash-line of .240 / .296 / .296 for an OPS of .593 in his combined 86 games and 233 at-bats with the Mariners, he still hadn’t hit a home run.

On June 19, 2016 the Mariners traded Taylor to the Los Angeles Dodgers for right-hander Zach Lee.

Taylor made his debut with the Dodgers on June 27, 2016 and has never looked back. He finished the 2016 season with a rather pedestrian slash-line of .207 / .258 / .362 for a .620 OPS. He also hit his first major league home run on July 15, 2016 against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. It was a grand slam off of Dbacks right-hander Silvino Bracho that powered the Dodgers to a 14-3 shellacking over the snakes.

And then came 2017.

After what can only be described as an outstanding spring training in which Taylor hit .354 in the 22 games in which he played, the Dodgers opted to put the .189-hitting Kiké Hernandez on their opening day roster over Taylor. And while this caused a lot of head scratching among Dodger fans, it took all of 16 games before Taylor was called up to the Dodgers

…and he isn’t going back down anytime soon.

Since his April 19 call-up, Taylor is 33-for-101 (.327) with six home runs, seven doubles, 18 runs scored and 19 RBIs. He has an on-base percentage of .424 and a slugging percentage of .574 for a ridiculous OPS of .998. Among his six home runs is yet another grand slam (on May 8) and his two-run shot on Saturday afternoon absolutely broke the backs of the defending World Series champion Cubs in front of 48,322 at Dodger Stadium in the eventual 5-0 shutout, the second in as many days.

Although this detailed account of the Chris-Taylor-for-Zach-Lee trade is in no way meant to be a knock on Zach Lee or the Seattle Mariners, the cold, hard, simple fact is that no matter how you slice it, the Dodgers won this trade big time. And when all is said and done and we look back on what seemed like a rather insignificant trade at the time many years from now, it could very well end up being among the best trades in franchise history.

…the Dodgers franchise, that is.