if the approach sticks it would be quite the win for White Sox development, and dare I say...Todd Steverson?

Edited April 4, 20197 yr by mqr

Looking through the MLB League Leaders , I see Moncada leads all of MLB in runs scored but even on MLB.com it still lists him at second base.

10 hours ago, mqr said:

K-rate is one of the fastest numbers to stabilize and be projectable, normally around 50-60 PAs FWIW. 

Correct, but "stabilize" in this sense was defined somewhat arbitrarily as an r^2 value of 0.5. That is hardly a guarantee, especially if we are talking about a player who is seeing a major shift from their previous 800 ABs in the MLB (and the minors too).

 

But like I said, I'm all for the optimism about the 2020 MVP (He gives it a good shot in '21 but Eloy beats him out ofc).

Watching Moncada's success so far is encouraging.  It's not like he's lucking into these hits.  As someone else mentioned, he looks so much better with two strikes.  That mammoth blast yesterday was on an 0-2 count, his double from the right on Monday was with two strikes.  He looks a lot more confident in the box.  He's going to be a joy to watch this year.

3 hours ago, gusguyman said:

Correct, but "stabilize" in this sense was defined somewhat arbitrarily as an r^2 value of 0.5. That is hardly a guarantee, especially if we are talking about a player who is seeing a major shift from their previous 800 ABs in the MLB (and the minors too).

 

But like I said, I'm all for the optimism about the 2019 MVP (He gives it a good shot in '21 but Eloy beats him out ofc).

Fixed it for you ?

11 hours ago, ron883 said:

"Easily"? Let's slow our roll here. He is an incredible talent, but being a 5 or 6 win player is not easy, no matter how athletic a guy is. 

I stand by my statement.  I fully expect Moncada to be a 4+ win player this season and said it all offseason.  And I continue to expect him to grow and settle into the 5 to 6 win range upon maturity (with the potential for more).  How many guys can you name that have both elite athleticism and a plus eye at the plate?  There is zero reason for him not to be a plus defender & base-runner and even if just a league average hitter (like last year) he would probably be a 3 win guy.  If he can address his strikeout problem (and the early returns are promising), the sky’s the limit with his bat because when he makes contact it’s of some of the highest quality in all of baseball.  And based on his offseason, there’s no questioning his dedication or commitment to be great, so I feel confident he’ll make the necessary adjustments to become the high end hitter he’s capable of.

On 4/2/2019 at 6:00 PM, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Yep let’s lock this kid up thru 2025 so the young core of Eloy, Moncada, Madrigal, Robert, and June’s top draft pick are all controlled for the next 6+ years.

Total agreement!  Include Cease & Kopech in this group.

We need to market a new name for Moncada. Maybe "the Anaconda" since he strangles balls and crushes them. Moncada the Anaconda!

1 minute ago, Chisox378 said:

We need to market a new name for Moncada. Maybe "the Anaconda" since he strangles balls and crushes them. Moncada the Anaconda!

Monstercada

YoYo Destroyer of Baseballs

 

13 hours ago, ron883 said:

"Easily"? Let's slow our roll here. He is an incredible talent, but being a 5 or 6 win player is not easy, no matter how athletic a guy is. 

But you just said in the other thread that Steverson fixed him

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

But you just said in the other thread that Steverson fixed him

Huhmmm, I wasn't aware that translates to "He will easily be a 5-6 WAR player".

Boy, a raking Moncada really makes the rebuild look much more promising.  I always thought he was an exciting player to watch but man has he started strong...he is becoming a don't miss an at bat hittler and I love to watch him run. 

The first post of this thread was about him batting .154.  Almost exactly one year later he's hitting .450.  Same sample size essentially.  Obviously he won't hit .450 all season, but this is a very encouraging start.  It'll be very interesting to see how he looks in a month or so.

20 minutes ago, hogan873 said:

The first post of this thread was about him batting .154.  Almost exactly one year later he's hitting .450.  Same sample size essentially.  Obviously he won't hit .450 all season, but this is a very encouraging start.  It'll be very interesting to see how he looks in a month or so.

True but the nice thing is it is carrying over some of the things we saw in spring training.

18 minutes ago, bmags said:

True but the nice thing is it is carrying over some of the things we saw in spring training.

I think this is the most encouraging part of the whole thing.  He was doing the exact same thing in Spring Training, so the sample size of his approach is larger, but the regular season numbers will certainly normalize because of SSS.  

4 minutes ago, BFirebird said:

I think this is the most encouraging part of the whole thing.  He was doing the exact same thing in Spring Training, so the sample size of his approach is larger, but the regular season numbers will certainly normalize because of SSS.  

Exactly.

The thing you always hold your hat on with moncada is he is athletic, fast, and hits the crap out of the ball. 

He can get a lot more productive as a player not by massively improving one thing, but improving the margins of his worst tendencies. He doesn't need to become an 18% strikeout guy to be productive, but if he goes to being a 28% guy he'll get more productive hits because he is fast and hits the crap out of the ball.

The more he specifically puts the ball in play the better because his natural talent lends him to being a guy that should be more productive in balls in play.

16 minutes ago, bmags said:

Exactly.

The thing you always hold your hat on with moncada is he is athletic, fast, and hits the crap out of the ball. 

He can get a lot more productive as a player not by massively improving one thing, but improving the margins of his worst tendencies. He doesn't need to become an 18% strikeout guy to be productive, but if he goes to being a 28% guy he'll get more productive hits because he is fast and hits the crap out of the ball.

The more he specifically puts the ball in play the better because his natural talent lends him to being a guy that should be more productive in balls in play.

No doubt.  At some point he will hit a bad stretch where he goes 0-4 with 3/4 Ks for a few games and his K rate will go up, but if he can keep it to 28% like you said that would be a HUGE improvement.  He should always have a high BABIP because of his speed and how hard he hits it so his stats for a small increase of balls in play will be noticeable.

With all the WAR talk, just thought it would be interesting (though fairly meaningless) to point out that Moncada would have a 22.7 fWAR season at his current pace. Mostly this points out how unsustainable his current pace is, and how dominant he's been in the first 5 games.

4 hours ago, ron883 said:

Huhmmm, I wasn't aware that translates to "He will easily be a 5-6 WAR player".

So then he didn't fix him?

Quick look at Plate Discipline Metrics 2018 vs. 2019 from Pitch Info

O-Swing% - 22.2% - 16.7%

Z-Swing% - 62.0% - 69.2%

Swing% - 41.1% - 42.0%

O-Contact% - 45% - 57.1%

Z-Contact% - 80.0% - 85.2%

Contact% - 70.1% - 79.4%

 

So he's actually only been swinging just a bit more overall, but he's way up in swinging at pitches in the strike zone. What's most comforting though is that his contact percentage is way way up. If he can keep an ~80% contact rate going forward then RIP rest of league.

 

2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

 

Translation. Moncada will throw the World Series !

35% of the way to his 2018 WAR total.  After 5 games.  Hold me back

This is the second-lowest 5-game K% Moncada's ever had and the second-best 5-game wRC+. He hit poorly in the only other 5-game stretch with a lower K%. The only 5-game stretch with a better wRC+, he struck out in 41% of his plate appearances.

He's swinging at strikes a bit more often than his career norms, but what stands out more is the amount of contact on pitches in the zone. He's chasing pitches just a bit less than career norms, but this is impressive when considering he's gotten more aggressive in the zone.

Who hits more homeruns this year? Yoan or Eloy?