It has been a rocky road for Phillies prospect Mickey Moniak since being selected No. 1 overall in 2016. Can he make some progress this season?
The bar has been set quite high for Mickey Moniak since being selected No. 1 overall back in 2016 by the Phillies. He drew comparisons to then-Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich, which would now be quite the comparison considering he won the NL MVP last season.
Moniak started off his professional career well enough in the Gulf Coast League with a .284/.340/.409 line and 124 wRC+ in 46 games. Unfortunately, things have not gone as well for Moniak since then.
In 123 games in Low-A Lakewood in 2017, Moniak managed only a .236/.284/.341 line with 109 strikeouts compared to 28 walks. He looked overmatched during his time there, which isn’t that much of a surprise considering it was his age-19 season and he was 2.5 years younger than the average player there.
Moniak made some progress last year, but his overall numbers still weren’t great in High-A Clearwater. He finished the season with a .270 batting average but a .687 OPS in 114 games. He showed promise from June on with a .288/.332/.444 line and 120 wRC+. The hope is those three months are a sign of things to come in 2019.
In the last two years, Moniak has fallen out of top prospect consideration entirely. He was still an MLB.com Top 100 prospect last year, even after his rough full-season debut. Now he is not on any Top 100 and ranks No. 9 overall in the team’s system per MLB.com and No. 10 overall per Baseball America.
Can Moniak recapture what made him a No. 1 overall pick three years ago?