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I'm sure that rating his skills as gold glove caliber in college didn't include how popular he would be in the MLB. I'm guessing the scouts were rating his skills.

I really can't understand this. Small sample size is a constant defense of Moncada. But now, a small sample of an otherwise terrific season is an argument against Albies? AYFKM?

Konerko had a track record of some success in 2003, and never had an obscene k-rate. They’re nothing alike.

That’s ridiculous. The last thing I care about with both of those guys are the homers. There both big guys and Rutherford is still a baby in terms of his age and strength. Last year at this time everybody was calling Rutherford a bust now he hitting 306. As long as the guy`s are making contact and hitting for a decent average and obp that’s all that counts IMO. To call sheets a reach is nonsense. Thome didn’t have any power early in his minor league career and look what happened. The play of both of those guys is the least of my concerns and actually pretty damm pleased with both.

Not worthy of the Hall of Fame, but definitely worthy of the Hall of Niceeeeeeeeee

It is more than a 20 game brutal stretch. He hit .274-April, .205- May, .197-June .231-July .182-August. Luckily he had a solid April. He is not extremely young by today's standards but he is fairly new to US baseball.

I don't get your argument man. Are you trying to say that Moncada is already an extremely good player? If so, then you have some pretty low standards. Moncada has to prove that he is a good player. So far he has been nothing but hype. Also, you can't just throw out his bad months and say he is having a good year. Every team would have 5-7 all stars if we just threw out all the bad stretches of their season.

I hope you were actually watching the game and not just watching game day. Any nitwit could just blame the catcher for that without actually using his eyes to see what happened. As i have said many times when talking about pitch framing you cannot frame a pitch that you are lunging for and many strike calls are missed when a catcher has to move from where he set up to where the pitch actually ends up. In this case Narvaez was set up inside and the pitch ended up on the outer half and a bit above the belt. ( not right down the middle but also not on the outer edge . The ball was all clearly in the zone. Narvaez had to do a quick lunge across the plate caught it of course in the zone but lunging causes momentum and his glove after he caught it continued out of the zone. It is nuts to blame the catcher on that.

This is dumb. Moncada was a super highly regarded prospect who looked pretty nice and shiny, but also struck out a lot in the minors. Luis Robert is a super highly regarded prospect who looks pretty nice and shiny, but also strikes out a lot in the minors. Maybe you're joking about the Cuban thing, but it's not crazy to see similarities and be a little unnerved by them.

Get out of here with this nonsense. I got no problems with Cuban players and love me some Jose Abreu. Abreu has proven that he can hit big league pitching unlike Moncada or Robert. U ready to eat crow on Albies yet? That kid just keeps on proving haters like you wrong day after day.

David Bote already has a higher WAR than Moncada this year and Bote has only played in 34 games! Quit living in the past with Moncada. His #1 prospect days are ancient history.

The fact and reality is that this kid is going to shatter the all-time strikeout record, which is a pretty big deal. People are legitimately reacting to that. I know I am concerned about that, and at the risk of also being accused of throwing a temper tantrum on the subject, I hope they find a way to sit him in September just enough times to prevent this from happening.

MonKada is done. I look at the box score after every game and go right to the K column. Dude seriously K's at least twice every game. He clearly is overmatched and can't even put the ball in play to prevent all these strikeouts. Not much hope for him imo. Hahn got hosed in that deal. Should have held out for Benintendi or no trade to Boston. It's beyond obvious Boston knew how overrated Moncada was.

Moncada is nothing more than a paper tiger at this point. I've been saying it for months, but the Sox got sold a Toyota Camry disguised as a Porsche. All the "tools" in the world don't matter if the kid can't hit and adjust his approach. He is going to shatter the all time record for strikeouts in a season. It will be really interesting to see what the Sox do with him a month from now. Will they shut him down in Mid-September in a developmental year or let him him shatter the strikeout record?

Lol, traded chris fucking sale for this kid and he was the top piece in the deal.

I know what you are saying, but that is on the ump. It is literally his job. That isn't a close pitch, it is a strike.

Sorry, that doesn't cause a hole in your bat. Yes he's been screwed a lot on pitches, but how about not falling behind in the count so quickly every at bat by not having a solid plan at the plate. The kid has had every excuse in the world made for him this year. His hit tool is just flat out awful.

it's in his head and I don't blame him. Never seen a season long screw job like this. It's probably about the difference in 50 OPS points.

He gave up a homer to Trout? What a bum!!! The thing you are missing is that he was pitching in the 8th inning. You only do that those days if you are an ace. Q has pitched 21.1 innings in the 8th inning. His ERA in those innings is 5.48. In 3 fewer career starts, Sale has pitched 117.1 more innings. He has recorded 352 more outs in 3 fewer starts. Those outs matter. Those are outs that aren't being heaped upon mediocre relievers. They are saving the arms of your more important relievers. In my opinion, that is a huge part of being a number 1. Going deep into games and IP are factors that are completely undervalued. I would say IP is the second most important pitching statistic behind ERA.

Time for robot umps. Then we wouldn't have to worry about framing.

Who cares about Albies. I’m not sure why he continues to be brought up in this thread. He’s irrelevant to Moncada.

Exactly. Some posters just jump on the Narvaez can't frame bandwagon and blame him for every non strike call on a strike. I've seen umps miss calls like that many many times when a pitcher misses his spot and the catcher has to lunge to catch it.

But if we all concede that he’s gotten hosed on probably 20, maybe even close to 30 called strikes that should have been balls, his k rate comes down significantly. Nobody can argue he hasn’t at least gotten “unlucky” with called third strikes, which is something that just doesn’t show up in the stat line. If even 10 at bats change from strikeouts to walks it has a 6 point effect on BA and a 20 point effect on OBP. now imagine a year he was “lucky” in that department

Well, we’ll see what happens next year. I’m trying not to get lumped in with the crazies- I do think Moncada will come around. I just think the lack of contact and bad approach shouldn’t keep him in Chicago anymore. He should go down for the rest of the Charlotte season, and then see if he deserves to come back.

I have positive posts. They just aren't in the Moncada thread cause there hasn't been much to be positive about with him this year. More than one account? LMAO. More nonsense.

I’m not saying they’re alike. You missed my point. I’m saying that extremely good players have somewhat bad seasons, and extremely bad stretches of seasons.

Having Albies instead of Moncada on this team would simply hurt their 2019 draft position. Let’s compare the performance of those two in the 2020 season and beyond when wins/losses actually matter to this team. Until then, I just don’t see the point in getting all worked up and his performance this year is actually helping their 2018 tanking effort.

Wait, didn't Parkman post 2-2.5 WAR is an MLB regular? Why, yes he did. You entirely skipping over the "2-2.5 fWAR" part of his post is impressive goalpost moving. If you're going to attack the man's opinion, at least cite the same thing he did, rather than skipping past the most cogent part.

Hey, I'm not writing Moncada off or anything, but his 2018 in a vacuum isn't good. I would agree that in a vacuum it isn't bad either, BUT as the headliner in the Sale deal having a start like this to his career isn't going to endear him to the fanbase, to say the least. In context, 1.5 WAR from the first full season in the bigs as the headliner in the Sale trade is nothing short of underwhelming and a massive disappointment. That is all I'm saying. Like I said earlier I think he still is raw and has enormous potential, and how close he gets to it depends on one thing: Hits. The rest will take care of itself, and that includes the Ks.

I’m definitely not declaring him a bust, but this K rate shouldn’t be tolerated at the big league level- and I don’t care how bad Baez was earlier in his career. I’d send him down to just take the pressure off a couple weeks. Hope something clicks.

If the minor league season was longer, I'd say it's getting close to demotion time. It's so disappointing to see how much worse he is as a hitter now compared to when he came up last season.

Another great exhibit of how badly he's pulling off the ball. If it's not inner half, he has absolutely no chance. That was the 3 worst swings he's had in an at bat this year. Keep up the great work Yoan and Steverson.

three straight 2 seamers. whiffed ugly on all 3.. smh

He's at a 117 wRC+ and an .810 OPS now, but yes, he's absolutely washed up and 39 years old and can't hit fastballs anymore!

My firm has/is litigating a number of child sex abuse cases here in Chicago. The shit is beyond disturbing once you get into the docs and the practices of the Church to protect these guys. And the way these guys prey on children is absolutely abhorrent. Brain washing young children to believe that the priest has a real connection to God, that he speaks to God, that God can tell them when he is upset, using the threat of sin, using the threat of telling parents about what the kid has done, etc. etc. These people need to be put away for life, but sadly the prison sentences for those that are criminally charged end up being pretty short and they're always at minimum security places. Luckily the law is changing, albeit slowly, to address repressed memories and the courts are now accepting it as something real so that statute of limitations issues aren't blocking legitimate cases. But there have been far too many people out there who had the courage to make claims and then were utterly screwed. The Keepers is a good mini-series on Netflix that deals with this issue in Baltimore (and it's one of the more fucked up examples of priest-abuse).

Ummmm. Only 79 players put up 2.5 WAR or higher in the AL last year. Exclude pitchers and the number is 52. So tons of everyday AL regulars didn't surpass 2.5 fWAR last season. So I don't think your comment really holds much water.

honestly the older i get, the more I grow away from any sort of religion. It doesnt resonate with me, at all. I was born christened and confirmed catholic, and just never felt the connection. If there is a god, im sure we can discuss it when it is my time And just so it is clear, i dont look down on people for believing in it.

I think since he was the top prospect and headliner in the Sale trade being below average has a different context. If Engel gets to just below average status we'd be real happy.

I remember being so mad at Robin during that game. Sale was clearly fading the inning prior and should've been pulled, but Robin let him out to pitch the 8th and obviously everything fell apart. If he never let Sale out for that inning, Sale's 2014 season ERA would have been 1.97 instead of 2.17.

The sheer magnitude of this abuse is just astounding. Considering the appalling nature of the abuse, we really need to understand how we can deter people from accepting the institutional cover ups. This has been easiest to occur in a closed institution such as the catholic church, but has popped up in lots of different institutions. It always ends up that so many more knew about it. I've thought a lot about this douthat column, and about some of the rumors about teachers that ended up being true. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/opinion/sunday/cardinal-theodore-mccarrick-metoo-archbishop.html

Got it. Guess I'm just gullible.

And while that probably is an exaggeration, based on just pure tools I don't see many ways Robert doesn't make a good starting CF if he's healthy. It's just a question of how good- starter, all-star, or MVP type? He has the highest ceiling of any prospect in baseball aside from Vlad Jr.

I know I was being crazy with my comparisons but hell dream big if you are going to dream at all. The kid has tremendous speed and power. He has elite bat speed. He is a great defender and base stealer.Between all the time he lost waiting to come here and the injuries he lost a lot of development time. I think he'd already be tearing up AA if he hadn't. If he can manage to stay healthy for a full season we will get to see someone who will spark our imaginations and when paired with Eloy could reach great heights with the Sox.

As long as we are being crazy. Imagine Roberts ceiling for a minute. Griffey, Trout, Mays (Willie) and Mantle all pop into my head.

Immaculate

I was trying to keep it in the Sox family, but yeah...Frank, Miggy, Pujols. He’s going to be a monster righty that hits for average and power.

Miguel Cabrera

He’s going to be Frank.