Yoan Moncada

smastroyin

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My point is not to bring Moncada down just to point out that the prospect fucking is so god damned ridiculous because as soon as guys have any struggles the prospect fuckers move on to the next guy who hasn't hit a wall yet.

In this case that means people forget that Xander destroyed the minor leagues at a young age playing the hardest position on the diamond and he's still just 22 having a great season in the majors.

Sometimes people work so hard thinking about the next big thing that they miss the thing right in front of them.
 
gryoung

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The development of X man has been one of the (few) bright spots this season. He's played a damn good defense at short and has been hitting all season. He sure looks comfortable both at the plate and in the field. 22 years old. Making a successful transition to the major leagues ain't easy, but he sure seems to be there.
 
Snodgrass'Muff

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billy ashley said:
Going into his debut, Xander was clearly the 2nd best prospect in the league but a lot of analysts were quick to point out that a number of guys graduating early (to be fair, Xander fits this bill as well) had depleted the higher end talent, that season. 
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Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Correa, Blake Swihart and Francisco Lindor would all have arguments to be listed ahead of Moncada right now if they hadn't graduated. Byron Buxton will probably graduate before the end of the season and he is an easy pick over Moncada. Seager, Giolito, Urias, Gallo and Crawford all have arguments for being listed higher. Hell, so do Arcia, Glasnow, Turner and Reyes. If that class hadn't graduated this year, Moncada would be an outside shot at the top 10. That's not to say we shouldn't be excited about him. We should. He's incredibly exciting, in fact. But prospects graduating mid season opening up paths for younger prospects to climb quickly is a yearly event. It happened to Xander, it happened for Moncada. I don't see why it's worth pointing out in Xander's case and not in Moncada's.
 
smastroyin

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BTW I was probably a little over the top, it's just reading this board last year and into the first half of this one, and the way people were bailing on Xander and JBJ as busts and then trying to dissect minor league numbers for the negatives and leaping to giant conclusions on little evidence...it's a cycle that just gets repeated a lot.
 
Let's hope Moncada is an All-star by this time next year and you all can play the shut up Steve game.  It's cool.  But, the Red Sox have graduated a bunch of really good players since Nomar.  I realize that hyperbole is the way many express excitement, though.
 
billy ashley

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Snodgrass'Muff said:
 
Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Correa, Blake Swihart and Francisco Lindor would all have arguments to be listed ahead of Moncada right now if they hadn't graduated. Byron Buxton will probably graduate before the end of the season and he is an easy pick over Moncada. Seager, Giolito, Urias, Gallo and Crawford all have arguments for being listed higher. Hell, so do Arcia, Glasnow, Turner and Reyes. If that class hadn't graduated this year, Moncada would be an outside shot at the top 10. That's not to say we shouldn't be excited about him. We should. He's incredibly exciting, in fact. But prospects graduating mid season opening up paths for younger prospects to climb quickly is a yearly event. It happened to Xander, it happened for Moncada. I don't see why it's worth pointing out in Xander's case and not in Moncada's.
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Again, I think a lot depends on how you choose to interpret the 18 month lay off for Moncada. 
 
I get the danger in splitting up sample sizes, but if we accept that  Moncada spent the first half of the season shacking off rust he possibly jumps up the boards a bit:
 
PRE ASB- 200/287/289; 1 homer 4 SB
Post ASB 310/415/500; 7 homers 45 SB

Now, I get that this isn't perfect, because even we do accept that he's a 900 OPS guy in Greenville, chances are he wouldn't have been long for for A Ball had he began the season like he ended it. Additionally, most those other guys are currently performing well in the high minors (unlike Moncada). There's also a question of defense, which is fair.

Of course, there's fault in using stats to evaluate guys in the lower minors- Moncada is not a 80 SB threat at all (nor was Cecchini ever much of SB threat, either) but between his torrid second half, his pre-signing reputation and recent elevators comments, I think he could have slipped into the top 10 for some people, even if you include the Swiharts, Schwibers. I wouldn't necessarily argue for it, but I wouldn't begrudge someone who did. 
 
 
Drek717

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smastroyin said:
My point is not to bring Moncada down just to point out that the prospect fucking is so god damned ridiculous because as soon as guys have any struggles the prospect fuckers move on to the next guy who hasn't hit a wall yet.

In this case that means people forget that Xander destroyed the minor leagues at a young age playing the hardest position on the diamond and he's still just 22 having a great season in the majors.

Sometimes people work so hard thinking about the next big thing that they miss the thing right in front of them.
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I think it's more of a statement of pedigree in this particular example.  Moncada has been a much mythologized figure lurking on the international prospect scene for a few years, if he was an American born player he'd likely have gotten hype comparable to Correa, Bryant, or even Bryce Harper.
 
Bogaerts meanwhile is from Aruba, was a mid-tier international signing, and then showed up and hit straight through.
 
Bogaerts is basically an example of a missed gem while Moncada is that guy everyone saw coming.  Scouts, the press, and by proxy fans have an inherent bias towards the later, entirely on pedigree.
 
I'm pretty sure Bogaerts' #2 ranking is the highest a Red Sox farm hand has made it on the Baseball America top 100 in the existence of Baseball America's top 100 for example, at least I couldn't dig up a #1 finish by anyone.  Hanley and Nomar both peaked at #10 for example.  Matsuzaka was #1 initially, but wasn't really a prospect.
 
Bogey's slow ML start and his lack of traditional "elite prospect" pedigree results in him getting downgraded in a lot of conversations.  He came out of nowhere and put himself at #2 across the board on prospect lists before graduating.  Since then he was a critical playoff addition on a WS team and this year has shown himself to be an incredibly mature, professional, and cerebral hitter.
 
Maybe people are downgrading him because he's moved up just in front of Correa and Lindor and are having their hype for his future dashed because he might only be the 3rd best SS in the AL during another Nomar/Jeter/ARod wave.  If that is the case though I don't think Red Sox fans right now can appreciate the most applicable comparison for him from that group but will feel very differently about that in 15 years.
 
Moncada is a tool box full of all the best tools and everyone has talked about how awesome those tools are for years.  Now it's time to show he knows how to use them.  Xander is a fucking craftsman beyond his years already and poised to only get better.
 
Buzzkill Pauley

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Drek717 said:
I think it's more of a statement of pedigree in this particular example.  Moncada has been a much mythologized figure lurking on the international prospect scene for a few years, if he was an American born player he'd likely have gotten hype comparable to Correa, Bryant, or even Bryce Harper.
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Or, far more likely, he would have been considered an excellent prep prospect for college football.
 
 
ALiveH

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would have been 5 / 11 if benintendi was eligible (85 PAs in Greenville).
 
AlNipper49

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The SAL was pretty shitty this year, but that is still pretty awesome.  Man this Greenville team this year was epic.  
 
pokey_reese

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He looks very inflexible at this point, like a buddy of mine in college who couldn't touch his elbows together in front of him because his pecs/biceps got in the way.
 
ALiveH

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On the eye test, i agree he looks a bit too bulked up. But, then i remember that he stole 49 bases against 3 CS in just 81 games. so he can't be that slow & inflexible.

Seems like he's turned into a gym rat because of being held out of offseason baseball activity due to a hand injury. I hope he's not just lifting all day, and doing his running & agility drills as well.
 
Marciano490

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Looks less lean than usual, so probably just doing an offseason bulk to add a few pounds of muscle, a lot of which will be lost over the season anyways. More heartened that he has good form, and while I'd usually say it's a prick move to drop your weights like that, in this case I'm glad he lets them go instead of bending down with them.
 
Montana Fan

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ALiveH said:
On the eye test, i agree he looks a bit too bulked up. But, then i remember that he stole 49 bases against 3 CS in just 81 games. so he can't be that slow & inflexible.

Seems like he's turned into a gym rat because of being held out of offseason baseball activity due to a hand injury. I hope he's not just lifting all day, and doing his running & agility drills as well.
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I haven't seen enough of Moncada to know how much different he looks versus his size a few months ago. However bulked up and fast makes me think of one guy.

 
kenneycb

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I know there's Gant suspicion when he started getting 30 HR power out of nowhere. I know I've Googled Gamt and steroids before and have gotten a lot of results. Same with Ricky when he hit around 30 when Jose and Mark were bashing bombs and shooting asses. No idea about Raul. So probably a big forward with "accused" instead of "suspected".
 
Papelbon's Poutine

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kenneycb said:
I know there's Gant suspicion when he started getting 30 HR power out of nowhere. I know I've Googled Gamt and steroids before and have gotten a lot of results. Same with Ricky when he hit around 30 when Jose and Mark were bashing bombs and shooting asses. No idea about Raul. So probably a big forward with "accused" instead of "suspected".
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You're going to have to help me out, because i just googled "Gant and steroids" and I got a couple of blogs and chat boards, some stuff about a professional weightlifter named Lamar Gant and then nothing.

Rickey Henderson I got a link to Eric Byrnes saying he "knows", which I find odd since he was like 8 when Rickey and the Bash Brothers were big and speculation by bloggers based on loose associations with McGwire and Canseco. And I highly doubt if there was anything legitimate, he would've walked into the HoF with 94.8% on his first ballot.

I see no legitimate or pervasive news source citing either being even "suspected". Would you mind providing a link where there is even legitimate "suspicion"? Is this suspicion by you, or is this like Trump remembering the Middle Eastern guys cheering 9/11 because he has the best memory in the world, only he can't remember where he saw it, so we just have to take his word?
 
kenneycb

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Sick burn. And no, pretty much just the "sources" you cite. So admittedly very flimsy stuff that people randomly bandy about. Glad it allowed you the chance to work an extended Trump metaphor in though.
 
The Price Is Wrong

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So, I did a bit of research on "what does Moncada's SAL MVP season suggest for his future", and then perhaps made a poor choice in placing it in an otherwise-dumb Chris Archer trade thread. But I'm curious as to what we've really got in Yoan Moncada, in terms of probability distribution, and whether he's still more of a lottery ticket going into 2016, or if it's now a question of "how good will he be in the majors". Not being much of a scout, this is what I did:

There's a list of South Atlantic League MVPs. Taking the 32 of them from 1981 through 2013, I went through and categorized them by career outcome.

Flameout (6, 18%). Never rose much beyond that, out of baseball not long after.
High Minors (8, 24%). Had a career in AA, AAA, and the Independent leagues. Never added to the 25-man of a MLB team.
Cup of Coffee (9, 27%). Small bits of MLB seasons, periodically; never stuck on the roster. Total WAR for this group: -3.2.
ML Bencher (5, 15%). Had a career as an MLB backup. Includes Ruben Rivera, Russ Branyan, Brandon Moss*, Eugenio Velez, and Jordan Pacheco. Total WAR for this group: 17.0.
ML Average-plus (2, 6%). Sustained MLB starter, with maybe an all-star year or two in the mix. Includes Kevin Seitzer, a serviceable 3B from 1986-1997, and Marcus Giles. Total WAR for this group: 45.4
ML All-Star (2, 6%). Consistently top quintile of the league. Includes Andruw Jones (62.8, HOF contender), and also J.D. Martinez (7.8 so far), whose age 26 and 27 seasons at 154 and 140 OPS+ suggest this path fits him best.

So, even among the SAL players-of-the-year that now includes Moncada, that still only suggests a ~12% chance of a strong ROI, plus 15% of some recovered value in ML production. Certainly, those outcomes beat the hell out of those for the average A-ball player. But they still shouldn't translate to being an instant top trading chip for MLB talent. Moncada is still far more likely to be a never-were than an Andruw Jones (at a cost of $63M to John Henry).

Someone could probably easily do the same categorization for the MVPs and Prospects of the Year in the Midwest League, the other A-ball league, which would be further interesting correlation. Some names jump out just from that list: Paul Molitor, BJ Surhoff, Todd Ziele, Reggie Sanders, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, Carlos Gonzalez, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout... clearly, whoever votes on their awards have been better able to predict future ML success than the equivalents in the SAL.

* Moss did have a solid 3-year run in Oakland, 2012-2014, including being an all-star in 2013. But he has had partial, if not tiny fractions, of seasons before and since, and has only 4.9 career bWAR in 9 ML seasons. He's a bencher to me.
 
snowmanny

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The Price Is Wrong said:
. Moncada is still far more likely to be a never-were than an Andruw Jones (at a cost of $63M to John Henry).
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If the only piece of information we had on him was that he was a SAL MVP you would be correct. But we also know that scouts rated him as equivalent to a top-five draft pick, and that the Red Sox rated him as worth the $63Million. Put all of those facts together and the odds start to even out a little bit, although they still don't predict Andruw Jones.
 
Detts

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It's back to what I always say: Batting stats mean nothing until AA as A ball pitchers on average cannot pitch. (also pitchers only need one plus pitch to be dominant in A ball).
 
SydneySox

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Awesome, now do one on people who didn't get the SAL MVP.

I'm working on one for the totality of the minor leagues. I have to check my numbers but initial data shows most MVP's played in the minor leagues at some point but most minor leaguers never won an MVP.

Pretty crazy stuff.
 
ALiveH

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I appreciate the analysis and the amount of time spent on it.

I would be interested how Moncada compares to the other MVPs who were similar age as him +/- 6 months at the time they won the award.
 
Cesar Crespo

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Or how top 10-15 prospects in the minors his age fair out in the long term, regardless of reward.

It's like 19 year olds who reach the MLB. When someone like Edgar Renteria is merely average or below, you know the list is pretty outstanding. Moncada is 20, and isn't in that class. That's not a knock on him though. But maybe there's a class below that has a decent chance of being at least an average performer.

Even in the MVP results, it suggests he has a 54% chance of making the majors... which is pretty good. Add in that he is 20, missed a year of development, and is a top 10-15 prospect would probably bump that number even higher.
 
Cesar Crespo

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Savin Hillbilly said:
Also, Gant's power didn't "come out of nowhere"; he hit 26 homers at age 21 in A-ball in 1986. If Gant was roiding then, we have ourselves the new untold story of the PED era.
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I didn't see this before, but Rickey Henderson also had 24 HRs in 1984 and 28 HRs in 1985 with NY. So much for "out of nowhere."
 
jimbobim

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Was in need of some baseball. At 1:40 the in game at bats of Moncada at Greenville start. The pitch recognition and bat speed sure look good to my non scouting eye.

 
AlNipper49

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I couldn't disagree more with anyone talking about his bat speed.

I say this with zero hyperbole but he reminds me so damn much of Manny. Even his outs are goddamn tremendous.

I had a discussion with some of the clubhouse people for Greenville. Their take was that he came onto the team with a bit of a chip on his shoulder and probably a feeling of superiority ('he was a prick'). The first few weeks humbled him quickly and to his credit (and to the credit of HC Darren Fenster) he turned it around almost on a dime.

Hazen couldn't have been more complimentary towards Fenster in this capacity. It's clear that he has a bright future in the organization, but his capacity to 'babysit all aspects of 18 year old kids' is going to make it tough to move him. I also read into it that he felt that it was an organizational competitive advantage to be able to draft/international sign non-college-seasoned athletes because of the infrastructure that they have in place in Greenville and lower.

I also took his comment about 18 year olds to imply that we would see Espinoza at Greenville to start the season. On top of those he also cautioned more than once about the organizational philosophy about not rushing players, so expect him to stew a bit.

And while I'm completely now off-topic one other minor league note was of his 'untradable prospects'. He said that nobody was untradable but that the organizational philosophy was that they sink so many resources into working these prospects that he'd 'be shocked' if they traded away a player who just has hit or is about to hit their ML roster and is considered a special talent. At that point the resource is just worth more to them because they know literally everything that there is to know about the player.
 
The Talented Allen Ripley

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#1 on BA's 2B prospect list.

Highest Ceiling: Moncada’s ceiling is sky high, as he showed in his stateside debut. After shaking off the rust in a poor first half, Moncada was outstanding in the second half including a .333/.451/.573 August that included three home runs and 23 steals in 25 attempts. Moncada’s second base defense is behind his bat, but he has the athleticism to play a multitude of positions.
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shaggydog2000

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On base 16 times, 13 attempted steals, that is pretty close to every time. Did that steal of home come after one of his triples? Because that would be nuts.
 
grimshaw

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shaggydog2000 said:
On base 16 times, 13 attempted steals, that is pretty close to every time. Did that steal of home come after one of his triples? Because that would be nuts.
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I think it was a double steal. SB numbers tend to be inflated at the lower levels since there are a lot of non-prospect catchers throwing. I'm interested in seeing the CS% mostly, but it's fun to see the ungodly numbers.
 
shaggydog2000

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grimshaw said:
I think it was a double steal. SB numbers tend to be inflated at the lower levels since there are a lot of non-prospect catchers throwing. I'm interested in seeing the CS% mostly, but it's fun to see the ungodly numbers.
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Good, because if he had hit a triple and immediately stolen home, I was going to have to head out to the shed to start working on the shrine for him, and I have so much other stuff I need to get done today........
 
Maximus

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Excited to see Moncada added to our Major league young core at some point going forward.
 
Drek717

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grimshaw said:
I think it was a double steal. SB numbers tend to be inflated at the lower levels since there are a lot of non-prospect catchers throwing. I'm interested in seeing the CS% mostly, but it's fun to see the ungodly numbers.
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This is why I would expect Moncada to be a relatively fast mover up to the AA level. Right now he can just emberass young catchers and pitchers with his raw speed. He needs to reach a level where the competition is good enough to keep him more honest in stealing bags instead of just running on everyone knowing they'll fail to catch him most of the time even if they see it coming.
 
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