Yoan Moncada Looks Like The SUPERSTAR The White Sox Traded Chris Sale For

I could get into one of my long winded mechanical breakdowns on Moncada, but I’m not going to do that.  I don’t even really know how to describe it either, he just looks better at the plate, and this dates back to last September.

It’s almost like a 6th sense thing – when he’s up to bat you just assume he’s going to drill the ball.  It’s so, so fun to watch.

Today he went 2-3 with a double, a dinger and 2 walks.  He did so while seeing 16 pitches in 3 at bats against one of the very best pitchers in baseball, Corey Kluber, and effectively ended his day by this missile for a double in the 4th:

and put the game well out of reach with this MISSILE in the 8th:

His confidence is through the roof.  You can see it in his eyes and when he’s standing in the batter’s box.  And like I said, he’s been exponentially more aggressive at pitches inside the strike zone, while still laying off pitches outside it.  The result is finding the barrel with a ton of consistency thus far, and when someone as strong as Moncada finds a barrel, shit like this happens:

Here are his oSwing and zSwing percentages from last year:

He swung the bat at a much lower rate than the rest of the league, and it helped lead to an almost record of 213 strike outs.  I didn’t really care, because it’s INFINITELY easier to teach a young player to be more aggressive than it is to teach a player to be more patient.  That, and if robot umps were a thing, he would have hit about .300 last year, and I’m only *kinda* kidding when I say this.

And here are his batting averages with/without 2 strikes last year:

With 2 strikes:

Less than 2 strikes:

What this shows, as I’ve said a million times, is that Moncada, while doing a great job of laying off balls, just needed to SWING THE FUCKING BAT!!!  Nobody does particularly good damage with 2 strikes, but Moncada was obviously awful in that count.  So…. go and hit the ball when it’s over the plate.  Easier said than done, but he’s doing so right now and it’s scary for baseball

But anyways, that’s what Moncada has done thus far; he’s been more aggressive on pitches in the zone.  And he’s teeing the fuck off when pitchers make mistakes.  And though his crazy good statistical start is in no way sustainable, the process behind how he approaches each at bat will be.

And each time he tees off, we’ll be blessed with still shots like this one where it shows the baseball exploding off his bat:

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That swing is straight up porn.  Back hip is driving through the baseball on contact, his eyes are watching the ball meet the bat, his core is acting as a catapult… goddamn that’s sexy.

Looking forward to watching this continue.  Though it’s only 5 games into the season, I do think it’s safe to say Yoan has finally clicked.  3 walks to 3 strike outs to 4 XBHs thus far.  Absolutely fucking love it.