News of Phormer Phillies

[David_Criss]

former Phillies merry go round in Chicago continues. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/05/cubs-re-sign-vince-velasquez-to-minor-league-deal-outright-yacksel-rios.html
Velasquez back - Ricos DFAed.

[kmc1019]

Good for Moniak, but you have gotta be kidding me.

[zambonir]

Yeah, good for him, but also, Coors Field. His road BA/OPS is .250/.758. 2 of the 11 HRs.

Like Marsh, he also doesn't play against LHP, is more a LF than a CF and is the same age (and 2028 free agent), so it's not like we miss or need him.

[RolenRules]

Are you saying we couldn't have used him in RF?

[zambonir]

Certainly not, we have too many LHBs already (including two of our three OFs and three of our four best hitters). And he wouldn't put up those numbers away from Denver. He also wouldn't solve the Garcia problem any more than Kepler (when he moved to RF) solved the Castelllanos problem (though he is certainly better than 2025 Kepler was).

[allentown]

It wasn't practical to keep Moniak. He hadn't developed for Phillies and we did get Syndegard for him to help at the end of our WS season. He's off to a great start this year but has had a spotty performance since we traded. A 2.2 rWAR with the Angels in 2023 was his only other positive WAR season. Admittedly, we'd be better with him in RF today than Adolis, but it made sense to trade him and we would have released him last season or in 2024 even if we had kept him and he did as well for us as he did for LAA in 2023.

[bkox]

the other thing is... maybe if he stays with the phillies he never finds this success. Sometimes a different coach or system finds something a former team doesnt. And thats not just a phillies thing. its everyone.

[mdougherty12]

I find it amusing that the bit of success Mickey Moniak has had in MLB has come as a dead-pull fly ball hitter after all the discussion here over how the Phillies ruined his all-fields line drive swing years ago.

[zambonir]

Yes, I was thinking that too. He's finally found that power the Phillies were dumb to try and unlock!

It would maybe be more irksome if he hadn't already failed for the team the Phillies already traded him to.

[phillychuck]

I find it amusing that the bit of success Mickey Moniak has had in MLB has come as a dead-pull fly ball hitter after all the discussion here over how the Phillies ruined his all-fields line drive swing years ago.

This is exactly what would be expected...when you change a guy’s swing and approach, it takes him a long time (in this case a decade) to adjust and have (only) moderate success (look at his Coors vs away stats). If they had let him remain an all-fields contact hitter, he may have been good for them...a 300 hitter with an 800 OPS who could play CF. We don’t have the “control” to compare with what they did, so we can’t determine from the evidence which approach would have been “correct” without the counterfactual.

[Philsmania]

Maybe Mickey Mo will be the Rockies' token All-Star at CBP.

Moniak is on his SECOND organization after the Phillies. Whenever a guy figures things out multiple seasons and multiple organizations later, I am not inclined to say "We should have kept him." Not saying Moniak has figured things out--we've gone through about a quarter of a season--but sometimes it takes a guy a long time to figure things out, longer than it is reasonable to expect his first organization to keep being patient. Jose Batista, for example.

[phillychuck]

And I’m not inclined to say, “We definitely took the right approach with him, he’s been good for a month in Colorado a decade later."

[zambonir]

Moniak needed to be on a bad team - two bad teams, in fact - to get his chances. And from what I've seen of the Rockies, combined with the Coors Field factor, he's probably not a starting OF on any good teams (nor on the Phillies, which is to say he's not better than Marsh and we can only hope he's not better than Crawford).

[EastFallowfield]

It's totally possible Moniak goes back to being Moniak the rest of the season and then any talk of him finally arriving will turn into, well, he got off to a great start that one year.

[Philsmania]

It's totally possible Moniak goes back to being Moniak the rest of the season and then any talk of him finally arriving will turn into, well, he got off to a great start that one year.

Like Domonic Brown went back to being Domonic Brown during the second half of 2013. Or, he just wenr on a HR tear in May of that year (12 of Brown's 54 career HRs--22%-- were hit that month).

[bkox]

Moniak did put up an 800+ OPS for the Angels in 2023 and Rockies last year, so while I dont expect him to keep a 1.000 OPS, an 800 OPS is quite possible. And thats a pretty decent hitter

[zambonir]

Man. But Dom Brown was a stud (though not a high draft pick). .980 OPS in AA and AAA that year they called him up too soon in 2010, and he was still only 22. Moniak was just .746 in his one main AAA season at 23 in 2021. He never forced a call up, was just needed at times. And then the one time he looked good for three weeks he got hurt, and once they acquired Marsh (and still have Vierling) he was unnecessary.

Moniak did put up an 800+ OPS for the Angels in 2023 and Rockies last year, so while I dont expect him to keep a 1.000 OPS, an 800 OPS is quite possible. And thats a pretty decent hitter

But he could also revert to 2024, or would anywhere but Denver. Last year his road OPS was .680 and he was still negative WAR overall. And didn't face LHB (sub-.600 OPS when he had to). He really is the high-altitude poor man's Marsh.

[Philsmania]

Man. But Dom Brown was a stud (though not a high draft pick). .980 OPS in AA and AAA that year they called him up too soon in 2010, and he was still only 22. Moniak was just .746 in his one main AAA season at 23 in 2021. He never forced a call up, was just needed at times. And then the one time he looked good for three weeks he got hurt, and once they acquired Marsh (and still have Vierling) he was unnecessary.

Moniak did put up an 800+ OPS for the Angels in 2023 and Rockies last year, so while I dont expect him to keep a 1.000 OPS, an 800 OPS is quite possible. And thats a pretty decent hitter

But he could also revert to 2024, or would anywhere but Denver. Last year his road OPS was .680 and he was still negative WAR overall. And didn't face LHB (sub-.600 OPS when he had to). He really is the high-altitude poor man's Marsh.

The Phillies called up Brown when Victorino was injured in August of 2010. That was definitely a turning point in his career. My impression was that other MLB teams getting to see Brown up close discovered his worst flaws and began really hammering them. Brown, however, did not make counteradjustments and his career pretty much downhill from there. It's notable how he never had comparable success even in AAA after that August, 2010 callup which makes me think somehow the book got out about him.

[bkox]

It's notable how he never had comparable success even in AAA after that August, 2010 callup which makes me think somehow the book got out about him.

2010? He was an all star in 2013 and had an 800+ OPS that year.. 3 years after that 2010 call up. POTM in May of that year

He had a blazing two months that year. If anything, it was after May and June that teams made an adjustment to him that he couldnt counter adjust,

[zambonir]

Yeah the 2010 call-up was a hiccup in his development, he was not ready or good at all then. Which probably also kept him from doing better or getting more chances in 2011 and 2012. Also the Phillies kept flipping him between RF and LF. He got going in 2013 but that was it (not that anyone could really succeed on the Phillies of 2013-2015).