"Rewarding" isn't the word you'd use to describe watching Yoán Moncada, but there's an edification in being able to recognize whether he's on or off his game without needing results. If he's pulling the ball in the air -- especially with his left-handed swing -- then he's got the requisite bat speed for extra-base hits, including balls over the fence. If everything in the air goes straight up or the opposite way, then you can expect more of the same until he goes back on the injured list for whatever is slowing him down.
For instance, Moncada went 3-for-5 on Wednesday in his latest rehab appearance, and the Charlotte Knights shared video of a sharp single in his fourth trip to the plate.
The other two hits were a bouncer through the right side, and an inside-out single that ate up the third baseman. He also flied out to left and struck out.
The day before that, Moncada grounded out three times around a strikeout. On Sunday, he grounded out, popped out and struck out twice. There hasn't been that ringing contact -- or even that near-miss off the end of the bat -- that suggests his barrel is getting where it needs to be in order to elevate. Should he rejoin the White Sox for their series against the Twins, I wouldn't expect anything different.
Tim Anderson is trickier, because unlike most players, a lot of his best contact goes the opposite way. He's not really late or lucky when he hits a firm line drive to right field. That's just how he uses his hands. So if Anderson goes 0-for-4 with a lineout to right, a flyout to right, and two grounders to the left side, that might be a typical day.
But he still can pull the ball in the air when the opportunity presents itself. Compare his 2023 spray chart to his last full, healthy season in 2021 ...
... and you can see the two groups of missing hits:
- The opposite-field homers.
- The singles and doubles ripped to left field.
Thanks to the flight of the baseball in 2022, there was reason to believe that right-handed homers to right field wouldn't be as plentiful, so I'm left to watch for the contact to left for the most reliable sign of revival.
Anderson had three hits during the White Sox's 11-10 loss to the Mets on Tuesday, and they were the good kind of hits -- line drives to left of center and an extra-base hit the opposite way.
The problem is that Anderson hasn't hit a homer in more than a calendar year, and he even went 112 plate appearances without a double before he snapped that streak on Tuesday. Without the instant impact of extra-base hits, he needs to string together a lot of these types of games to rate beyond a cocked eyebrow on the Vince McMahon Meme Scale, and Anderson followed it up with a standard 2023 performance instead: a strikeout, a decently struck lineout to right, and two routine 6-3's in the White Sox's 5-1 loss to the Mets.
Anderson's still trending the right way as of late, Wednesday night notwithstanding, and it's worth watching for the good kinds of contact both in the short- and medium-term futures. If the line drives start appearing with more regularity, a team might pony up at the deadline. There's the idea that groin injury from last year and this year's knee sprain screwed up the way he uses his legs, and that team may want the luxury of making the decision on the 2024 team option during a winter that's pretty much barren for middle infielders. If the rest of July features these fits and starts that diminish the point of making such a deal, at least there's a point in watching him in August and September as well, whether we're trying to figure out what the White Sox have, or whether it's better to move on.
