Adalberto Mondesi, Kansas City Royals
As the Royals embark on the beginning stages of a rebuild — they suffered through their first season of 100-plus losses since 2006 — it’s important to find things to get excited about and latch onto them. Adalberto Mondesi’s 2018 campaign certainly qualifies as one.
Mondesi’s first 209 big-league plate appearances produced a .497 OPS, 33.5% strikeout rate, .090 ISO, three homers, 14 stolen bases, and a 29 wRC+. His next 291 plate appearances (all in ’18) led to an .804 OPS, 26.5% strikeout rate, .222 ISO, 14 homers, 32 stolen bases, and a 114 wRC+.
He was still swinging and missing a lot (18.2% swinging-strike rate in ’18), but posted a 79.3% swing rate on strikes, which was 10 percentage points higher than what he did the year prior. While his 79.5% contact rate in this situation isn’t overly impressive, it likely helped in the young middle infielder to post a 43.1% hard-hit rate.
Now, it will be a matter of trying to sustain this kind of performance over the course of a full season.
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