Free Agent Profile: Yoán Moncada

Yoan Moncada presents one of the most interesting cases for any offensive player this off season.

This free agent class feels very much like a haves and have nots, in regards to offense, with the top of the class Juan Soto, Willy Adames, Christian Walker, Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman to name a few feeling like the clear top guys, and a secondary group of Gleyber Torres, Ha-Seong Kim, Teoscar Hernandez, Anthony Santander, Tyler ONeil, and the first basemen in Carlos Santana and Paul Goldschmidt leading the way.

After that, though, it thins out fast, which is why someone like Yoan Moncada is so interesting as a secondary option for the Mets .

Moncada has been a household name for his entire career.

He was highly touted when the Red Sox signed him out of Cuba in 2015, and he immediately became one of the top prospects in the entire sport by 2017 he would be the number two prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, and the number five prospect according to Baseball Prospectus.

He traded in his Red Sox for White in 2016, as he and Michael Kopech headlined a blockbuster that sent Chris Sale to Boston and Moncada to the South Side of Chicago.

After average 2017 and 2018 campaigns in Chicago, he finally had his breakout season in 2019.

He hit .315/.367/.548 (139 wRC+) with a 5.2 fWAR, making it seem like he made good on the lofty expectations laid upon him as a prospect.

However, he would never reach those heights again.

2020 saw him earn a 94 wRC+, but it was the COVID season and weird things happen in a small sample.

2021 was closer to 2019 than 2020, as he hit .263/.375/.412 (120 wRC+), with a 3.7 fWAR.

It would prove to be all downhill from there.

He has been limited to just 206 games played over the last three seasons, suffering a myriad of injuries that kept him off the field, including playing in just 12 games a season ago.

When he has played, it has not been pretty, as he has a combined 88 wRC+ in those 206 games.

Now, dear reader, a lot of this reads as enormous red flags and why the Mets should avoid him, but there is more upside in his bat than in a lot of the other free agents in his tier.

While they should not sign him as their number one offensive upgrade and a worse team might do that he fits the roster if they spend, lets say, $700m on Juan Soto and they do not land a first baseman such as Alonso, Goldschmidt or Santana that will keep Mark Vientos at third base.

As the third or even fourth offensive upgrade, Moncada makes sense.

He is a good third baseman, and he has previously shown that he can hit a lot at the major league level.

They could move Mark Vientos to first base or even DH, and give them more upside offensively than any of the internal third base options, and most of the third tier of free agency..

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