Chicago White Sox: 2022 player grade for Yoan Moncada

The Chicago White Sox are a team that underperformed by a large margin in 2022. A big reason for that is the play of Yoan Moncada. He has all of the skills to become a superstar in the game but he just seems to be getting worse and worse each year. It is hard to make sense of it all.

Moncada's grade here isn't going to be pretty. If you showed them this 2022 grade in 2016 when they made the Chris Sale trade, we would all see it as a failure. However, there is still hope that something in there unlocks for him again as it did in 2019 when he was receiving MVP votes.

He won't have the worst grade on the team either because he is as sure-handed defensively as anyone in the organization. He plays a phenomenal third base and very rarely makes a mistake defensively. That doesn't outweigh the fact that he is mostly useless offensively but it is something.

This is the type of player that just needs slightly above-average offensive numbers to be considered a top third baseman because of how good he is defensively. We know that the ability to play that well is in there but he just needs to bring it back out.

Injuries could have played a part in it as he missed the first chunk of the season but when he came back he was often as useful as he was on the bench. He slashed .212/.273/.353 for an OPS of .626. He hit 12 home runs, had 51 RBIs, and 41 runs scored.

All of those stats are brutal coming from someone that everyone had so much faith in but his WAR was over zero because of the fact that he is so good on defense. His glove somehow covered his horrid offensive numbers up that much. There were times when Jake Burger was a more effective 3B.

Final Grade: D

Yoan Moncada had a terrible year in a Chicago White Sox uniform.

The grade of D is the only thing that suits Moncada. His glove keeps him from getting an F- which is only fair based on how all of the grades have been handed out. His bat was so bad and his glove was so good. It would be a fair trade to lower his ability on defense a little bit for better offense.

2023 is a big year for Moncada. He is for sure going to be the starting third baseman as long as he is healthy. If he has another year like the one that he just had, you can expect him to depart from the team not long after.

They can't keep paying someone that much to be so bad. It is fair to be hopeful that he is able to bounce back a little bit. The team would probably win a lot more games if Moncada reached his potential. At this point, he'd take his 2021 season again.