Chicago White Sox: Yoan Moncada and his batting average
The Chicago White Sox have a superstar in the making with Yoan Moncada, and he is climbing the batting average ranks each day.
The Chicago White Sox have seen some impressive development from some of their young players. Tim Anderson is the favorite to win the American League batting title with only a couple of weeks left in the season, Eloy Jimenez might have a 30 home run and 80 RBI rookie season with two long stints on the injured list, but Yoan Moncada might be the most impressive of them all based on how far he has come with such high expectations.
When he was acquired from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for a Hall of Fame talent in Chris Sale, he was the number one prospect in the world. Not only did he have the pressure of being the number one prospect, but he also had the pressure of being traded for such an important player in White Sox history.
Moncada didn’t really live up to expectations in 2018. In fact, he had a bad year with all things considered. He had a .235 batting average, which by all accounts is not very good, especially from a player of Moncada’s caliber. He also led all of Major League Baseball with 217 strikeouts. He struck out a lot due to watching strike three go by him. He often was rung up on pitches that were clearly out of the zone, so you can argue his eye was a little too good.
Yoan clearly needed to make some adjustments, especially protecting the plate with two strikes. Now, he currently only has 145 strikeouts which are a steep decrease from where he was last year. The strikeouts were not the only thing that he needed to improve on as his batting average needed to be much better. That has happened and then some as he is tied for fourth in the American League with a .312 batting average. He likely isn’t in contention for the batting title with his teammate Tim Anderson but being over .300 is incredible for Yoan.
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So where does he go from here? He needs to finish the season strong, and then have another great offseason. The White Sox are likely going to be much better next year, and if Moncada repeats a year like this and perhaps even gets better, this could be an MVP caliber player.