Yoán Moncada has quietly re-established himself as one of the best young players in all of baseball

For those of you who don’t live on the South Side of Chicago you may not have realized it but Yoán Moncada is absolutely breaking out.  He has flown under the radar to a degree and quietly had an incredible season and been one of the best third baseman in the league.  To be honest with you I think a lot of people wrote him off, not surprisingly as he has been talked about since he was a teenager and these days if you don’t perform immediately people move on.  Not everyone is Ronald Acuna or Juan Soto and many players take longer to develop than others.  Moncada always had the skillset but he struggled with strikeouts, an issue that can be resolved with experience and film work.  It seems that Moncada is maturing as a hitter as he is only striking out 27.8% of the time as compared to 33.4% of the time in 2018, still a high % but better nonetheless.  What does that result in?  It results in a higher contact rate and an uptick in average all of which has happened and has translated into more power.  Playing for a losing/rebuilding team will never get you much publicity but at the detriment of Red Sox fans all over the world that salivated over Moncada for years he has firmly entered his name into the mix of future stars.  Let’s take a look at some numbers.  Entering today Moncada is hitting .300 with 22HR 63RBI a .352OBP and is slugging .537.  While the stolen bases (7) are low for a guy possessing his speed these stats are over 395 ABs.  Project that over roughly 600+ Abs and we are talking monster numbers for a 24 year old.  In fact he currently has a 4.2 WAR which ranks top 6 for guys under 25 years old, ahead of guys like Pete Alonso, Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Gleybar Torres and ranks him 5th overall for Third Baseman.  Projected over 600 plate appearances Moncada’s WAR would rank top 10 in the entire league.  Pretty crazy right?  As long as he keeps pushing the strikeout rate down there is no reason he won’t continue to approve, Moncada has arrived.