Adalberto Mondesi Trade Marks a Necessary End to an Unfortunate Era
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In the middle of what's been a relatively quiet offseason for the Kansas City Royals in comparison to some of MLB's premier baseball clubs, the team got incredibly busy early in the week when it shipped outfielder Michael A. Taylor out of town to the Minnesota Twins. Executive vice president of baseball operations and general manager J.J. Picollo then cranked up the burner on the proverbial hot stove to 10, trading infielder Adalberto Mondesi to the Boston Red Sox.
It's clear that the former move was much more widely anticipated than the latter.
Taylor was an aging center fielder at a position that already had a multitude of young players competing for reps (and still does, even without him in the picture). Mondesi, still just 27, was coming off an ACL tear but Kansas City avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year contract with him in December. It appeared that the organization was prepared to give him one more shot to prove that he could have a significant impact on winning baseball. While the trade to Boston shouldn't have completely blindsided anyone, it did catch some folks off guard. With that said, it was a necessary move for multiple reasons.
Mondesi, who was the Royals' top prospect in 2015, became the first player in the modern era to make his debut in the World Series when he appeared in Game 3 against the New York Mets in October of that year. The pressure for him to be a phenom was immense from the jump, and he flat-out wasn't ready for it. In 72 combined big-league games between 2016 and 2017, his age-20 and 21 seasons, he hit .181 and was a black hole for the lineup every time he stepped into the batter's box.
Perhaps Kansas City trusted Mondesi too much and gave him more than he could handle, also doing so sooner than he could handle it. Picollo mentioned during a post-trade Zoom call that the team occasionally wondered what it could've done differently in regard to how it handled Mondesi's time with the club. Most of that stemmed from the injury front — more on that very shortly — but the pressure aspect did spark some brief reflection. Unless Mondesi cashed in on his tools and potential and became a star-level player, he was always going to fall short of early expectations. That bar wasn't going anywhere.
For one reason or another, Mondesi never truly came close to reaching that bar. The aforementioned injuries plagued him throughout his time as a Royal, cutting multiple seasons short and holding him back as a result. Consistency was also an issue, as he only put together two quality seasons and maxed out at a career-high of 102 games played (63% of the season) in 2019. He was never able to settle in, and most of that was out of the team's control.
When healthy, Mondesi maintained a poor contact profile and was a very impatient hitter. His career line is just .244/.280/.408 with a 79 wRC+, which isn't anything to write home about. He has one career season with a wRC above 90. Mondesi's speed and defense in Kansas City were exquisite, although the injuries took such a toll that the team had to consider a risk-benefit analysis in relation to those situations just to keep him on the field.
Picollo was surprisingly transparent about the Mondesi trade on Tuesday, admitting that the switch-hitting infielder experienced some frustrations during his time with the club. He also used the word "excited" multiple times when asked about how Mondesi responded to the news of getting sent to Boston. It doesn't take a mind reader to conclude that both sides, for completely justified reasons, were mostly ready to part ways and start something new. As such, over half a decade into their Mondesi experiment, the Royals finally jumped at the opportunity to end it.
Whether the timing was perfect is worth questioning, as is the return Kansas City got for Mondesi. Selling stock in a talented player when his value is at its lowest is always difficult, and the Royals could've let Mondesi play out one last year with the team before hitting the reset button in free agency. With that said, who's to say that it wouldn't end up being another injury- or struggle-filled campaign? The minimal amount of juice the Royals were getting was no longer worth the high-intensity squeeze they were having to apply. For the sake of Mondesi's professional and personal well-being, as well as the future of the Royals and their other infield options, this was a necessary end to an unfortunate era.
