Yoan Moncada

With the debate about his current status and rate of progression, he (as well as everyone else) could use some clarification. Now that he is oriented, comfortable and rust free, winter ball seems lime the ideal time to work with Alex Cora and his crew, and other talented players, to take another step forward in terms of development of both skill set and confidence. Why not?

Add to that the fact that he hadn't played in a year before signing, and his admission that he's not yet 100%, more playing time at Caguas under Cora's tutelage is the right move for his development.

Yeah, you're right! We have far too many wimpy Cuban guys...(Italics not needed)

I can't tell who is kidding and who isn't on this (other than the "Moncada needs to hit the gym" bit - if you can't tell that's a joke, may I direct you to Google Image Search...), but for whatever it's worth, Moncada going to Puerto Rico does not imply that he's going to play every single day, for those worried about burning him out. There is a little bit of rotation mixed in (consider that Caguas played 39 regular season games last year and only four guys got over 30 games played). And there are plenty of off days: To play Caguas's 51 games including playoffs last season, it took 80 days. Much different grind than minor league ball in the U.S., where Greenville played its final 51 games over 55 days. Caguas never played more than six days in a row, and only then, it was usually (and perhaps always) because of a rescheduled game that'd been rained out.

Hopefully it will be a great opportunity for another coaching staff to get their hands on him and work on his defense, maybe also get some reps at 3B.

The best thing about this move is Alex Cora. Think about all the implications from that move. Former infielder, positive role model, a player who was always intended to go into player development and coaching. Perfect choice. Everything I see the Redsox do is to be careful with his development. The XST time, spending the rest of the year in Greenville, now tutelege in a near ideal environment for him. Lot's of teams would have him in at least Salem by now and maybe even Portland.

I wouldn't assume he's moving to third. If you look at the Fall Instructs rosters, he's one of two second basemen going, the other being Chad De La Guerra. You'd think if he were going to move this offseason, they'd start the process there, and I'd assume they'd bring in another second baseman (like Andy Perez) just to fill out the numbers, and perhaps not bring over a DSL third baseman in Stanley Espinal if Moncada and Chavis were going to split the 3B reps.

I get the feeling that discussions on his future position will start next spring.

Eric, I never said Moncada was bad at stealing bases. I said it was his strongest tool essentially, but I will add for clarity that is difficult to really compare him to Hamilton who stole twice as many bases at age 20 and then 3 times as much the next year. If Hamilton didn't have such an aggresive approach would he have stolen bases at a higher percentage? I would say almost definitely. I also don't see how we can just say "Moncada wasn't trying" earlier. I agree that there was an obvious shift in emphasis but he wasn't hitting earlier either. We can't just say, "those first 25 games don't count" and while most other players took their lumps at the beginnig of the year Moncada was treated with special caution, probably for a good reason.

We keep giving him excuses. The XST. The data of his first 25 games as irrelevant. I get that the subsequent games were a lot more relevant but all his games were statistically significant. We can't just cherry pick every player's best 200 AB. We appear to be doing at least some statistical gymnastics to elevate him to where we expected him to be. I'm not buying that the rust of all that time off was the primary reason he was in XST and started off slow. It was more LIKELY to me that it was language related, culture related and he just was not ready for Greenville yet. Most players take several months off in the winter. Even a year of extra time is not that big a deal. Did Jose Abreu need extra time? Puig and many others missed similar amounts and stepped right in and hit.

I'm not dumping on Moncada, particularly on his base stealing ability, his strongest tool. It still is not earth shattering, top prospect in baseball performance. Let's say statistically he's the best stolen base guy in the minors. Even if he was, there were still 5 guys in the Sally alone with at least 46 stolen bases, and Moncada had 49. Jorge Mateo had 71 and Fargas 59. And Wes Rogers stole 46 bases and was caught only 4 times. 5 guys were all over 46 SB and that's just the Sally. Even in Moncada's best tool, he was the best base stealer in his league but his overall data doesn't elevate him to be a top 5 prospect in baseball. If he gets there this year it will be because of scout evaluations and the hype, less than his performance level.

I don't refuse to admit things when I'm wrong, and often have many times in the past. I was wrong apparently on Cechinni. I thought Barnes would do better this year as a reliever...etc. Eric, even in your own post you admit the perspective was incorrect. You were comparing a guy in the majors with a guy in Greenville. I would call that not even close. I feel absolutely comfortable with my analysis on Moncada. He's still my #3 prospect,

I saw Moncada play defense live 5 times this yr and he looked a little more comfortable each time but I'm still not convinced he's a 2nd Baseman. He's still fielding everything off to the side and as a result he kicked a lot of easy ones.

I think in 3 years he's a right fielder and a good one.

I personally wouldn't go so far as to say 1-8 are interchangeable, but in terms of ceiling, it really does look like Moncada, Espinoza, Benintendi, Devers, and Margot (maybe) have perennial All-Star potential. And Guerra may very well if he hits anything like he did this year, and continues to flash the plus-plus glove. Any one of those six might reasonably be the highest-ceiling prospect in a third or more of MLB teams' minor league systems, if not the top prospect (given high risk for the low-A players). Certainly, Kopech has also shown himself to be a reasonable #2-SP ceiling player, so he's just outside of that group. And while Chavis had a tough year contact-wise, he was very young for the league and still piled up the XBHs. The Sox have a remarkably deep system coupled with some incredibly high-ceiling talent that, itself, is deep as a group. So yeah, looking at Betts, Bogaerts, Swihart, E Rodriguez, JBJ, Vazquez, Owens, Johnson, Barnes (I hold out hope), Holt, and the aforementioned group...the next 3-4 years are going to be ridiculously fun to watch.

Not to mention...barring some bizarre signing this winter, like Zimmerman, they'll have a draft pick probably in the 11-14 range, and a quality second-rounder.

He has outgrown the position. People always draw the line according to height, but in this case he's just too filled out and he's not even 21. I think we could try him at 3B but he looks like someone who could be a good COF to me.

Wonderful problems