The Chicago White Sox has so many different great players. One of them is also the most polarizing to the fanbase and that is Yoan Moncada. The reason that he is polarizing to the fanbase is that there are some heavy debates on how good he is.
There is really no debate on the defensive side of things. He is a magnificent third baseman that makes some truly awesome plays to help the Sox keep runs off the opponent’s board. It is the offensive side of things that gets people going. You be the judge based on the numbers.
In 2021, Yoan Moncada had a slash of .263/.375/.412 for an OPS of .787. That isn’t a bad slash line by any means but it would be nice to see the slugging improve. It appears that he needs to add more power as he had 14 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 74 runs scored. If he hit a few more home runs and hit a few more gaps, that OPS would go way up into the All-Star category.
However, he came out of the season with a WAR of 4.0 which is absolutely All-Star caliber. The MVP candidates go higher than that with their WAR but Moncada might not be an MVP-level player. He is still without question a very good player that helps a team win games.
Yoan Moncada is going to be very important for the Chicago White Sox going forward.
He is going to be the third baseman of the White Sox for a very long time. He doesn’t have an extremely long-term extension yet but he will get one when the time is right. Even if he needs to improve on a few things offensively, he is still an impressive player.
Yoan Moncada didn’t get to this spot overnight. He was the number one prospect when the White Sox acquired him and Michael Kopech from the Boston Red Sox. After that, he had a really bad start to his MLB career but was turned around by 2019.
He still has a very long way to go but the White Sox are truly a better team with him owning third base. If he can figure out what he needs to do to add some more power while maintaining everything else, the White Sox will have a chance to make a deep run.