A darkly amusing miscommunication marked the beginning of my interview with kinetic White Sox prospect infielder Javier Mogollón, affectionately called "Mogo" by his teammates.
His answer of "trece" (13) for at what age he entered a baseball academy in his native Venezuela was briefly misheard as "tres" (3) by our interpreter. But the point remains the same. This 5-foot-8-inch (or shorter) 18-year-old sitting across from me in the cafeteria of the minor league side of the White Sox spring training complex, with an unruly pompadour of curls sitting atop his head, has had to consider his actions in terms of his professional future for a long while, and earlier in life than almost any of us can imagine.
"I know for sure he's going to have a really successful career," said ACL White Sox manager Danny González. "He's really smart. He knows what we want, he knows what we expect from him, and his approach to this game is just different."
The immediate testimony to González's point is that I walked in on Mogollón in the middle of a significant mechanical change in his swing. In placing him among the top-30 White Sox prospects off his success in the Dominican Summer League, both Baseball America and FanGraphs projected Mogollón with a plus hit tool, with the former praising him for a "a simple, compact swing with no stride."
Instead, the Mogollón I watched employed a leg kick that can see his front foot approach the height of his back knee at its apex, but calms down a bit with two strikes as is seen below.
This is bold switch, both because you can just look at it and see it's a bold switch away from no stride, but also because the initial returns are the type to obliterate hopes of a plus-hitting profile. Mogollón is producing to the tune of a .230/.365/.487 line through 33 games while going 14-for-14 on stolen base attempts, but is striking out a ridiculous 42.3 percent of the time. That's settled down slightly of recent, with one multi-strikeout game in his last seven played (eight in 25 plate appearances), which lines up with Mogollón's belief that it's all for the greater good.
The interpreted quotes were given in third person, so be prepared for a bit more cleanup than usual.
"That in and of itself is an adjustment [we've] made in the last few days," Mogollón said via interpreter. "It helps [me] a lot, it's been helping [me] recognize different pitches. The key is making sure that the step down is in the right timing window. But doing that approach has really helped [me] be able to identify and capitalize on pitches."
And it's a bold switch, because from a 30,000-foot view, it's hard to see how Mogollón's profile transcends any contact issues long-term. Half of his hits as a professional (including 17 of 26 this season) have gone for extra bases, but with envelope-pushing baserunning against low-level defenses playing a role, few would project any middle infielder this size delivering plus power production in the majors. Few would also project him to stay on the left side of the infield, in spite of how much the man himself would loathe a long-term resignation to second base.
"Shortstop just brings [me] a lot more happiness," Mogollón said via interpreter. "[I] like the space that [I get] to cover. It feels more natural for [me] with [my] normal movements and what [I get] to do."
Scouting often compels you to search for what players can do easily and repeatedly. Mogollón repeatedly dashes down every chopper to the hole in a frenetic dead sprint, but more regularly makes it look like a cathartic triumph of his spirit than easy. I read a report before walking down to the backfields that Mogollón had a below-average throwing arm, and he simultaneously didn't directly refute it, but coiled his whole body to unleash a laser from behind second base that had his entire dugout whooping in amazement.
From years of watching the physical unicorns in the majors, I've seen Carlos Correa make similar throws look a lot easier, but watching Mogollón recreate the same result via intense effort and jacked forearms inspires a different brand of admiration.
"After he threw that ball, everyone was like 'Wow,'" González said. "That kid, he has more than five tools, man. You don't expect a guy to be that short and do this stuff that he does. I think he knows his body. I think he knows that he's strong. I think that he knows that he can do a lot of things."
Asked if there was a player he grew up idolizing, Mogollón did not pick a sparkplug utility player who subsisted on guile and work ethic, but slugger Miguel Cabrera. His best moments are not defined by slappy swings and infield singles, but lofted hard contact driven through the air. His helter-skelter baserunning makes Mogollón look like he's in Arizona a rehab assignment from the 2022 Cleveland Guardians, but his demeanor in the batter's box seems Juan Soto-inspired.
"Mogo is awesome," said former complex league teammate George Wolkow. "He plays hard. He's a great ballplayer."
The odds are against a player this size becoming a major league regular. The odds are largely against any player who spends a significant stint of time playing in complex ball, let alone striking out at a 40 percent clip there while they undergo a major mechanical change. The odds for pretty much any sub-$100,000 international amateur signing making the majors at the moment they put pen to paper? Again, pretty low. So be it. Whether it works out is very hard to say. Whether you'll want to see if he can pull it off, I can almost guarantee.
Mogollón got this writeup because he was one of, if not the most exciting player on the field in a complex league game. But it's tempting to see his performance as a product of his environment; the master of chaos on a field full of it. Against sloppy defense in sweltering heat, he seems unstoppable. When he's playing on a cold and breezy day in North Carolina, against older players who have played college baseball, will it feel the same?
"The energy comes from inside," Mogollón said via interpreter. "In your career you're going to play in different types of weather. [I've] been taking the approach that energy comes from within. It's not necessarily the physical things. Those can add or subtract a little bit. It's just digging deeper and letting the energy flow from inside of who [I am]."
