Yoan Moncada’s righty swing is all that’s wrong

If every young White Sox could struggle in the fashion Yoan Moncada has, their fans would have a whole lot less to worry about.

Moncada's had a nice week, hitting .346/.452/.885 with five walks to nine strikeouts over 31 plate appearances. It's the kind of hot stretch that makes his 2018 look like a progression:

• 2017: .231/.338/.412, 3-for-5 SB over 54 games
• 2018: .244/.352/.500, 4-for-4 SB over 20 games

FanGraphs says he's already matched last year's WAR total (1.1), while Baseball-Reference.com says he's approaching the halfway mark (0.8 to 1.7).

His strikeout total has been the main reason why his season hasn't felt successful -- at least for those who feel that way -- and he's starting to wrestle that down. It's still too high at 38 percent, but as FanGraphs noted, his batting eye gives him a chance to make it work, because his strikeouts are just about entirely due to bat control. He also stings the ball when he makes contact, which makes it a little easier to resist the forces of luck.

But perhaps the most comforting part about Moncada's season is that his struggles are just about entirely contained to his right-handed swing.

• vs. RHP: .286/.385/.607, 36% K
• vs. LHP: .136/.269/.227, 42% K

Rick Renteria has already taken a step to mitigate the disparity by dropping Moncada to the bottom half of the order against a lefty starter, while still leading off against righties. Otherwise, it's almost entirely about reps.

James Fegan wrote the article that was atop my to-do list before I learned the Sox wouldn't credential me for SoxFest, talking to Todd Steverson and other switch hitters about the learning curve for switch-hitters.

Moncada was born right-handed and he throws right-handed. Despite his early career splits being way more intense than someone like Sánchez — as is his overall production in spite of the splits — Steverson doesn’t see Moncada as limited in his ability as a right-hander in any systemic way. He’s strong, his bat speed is present, his eye and his patience remain the same.

“It’s just lack of use,” Steverson said. “It’s not behind, it’s just not being maintained in a competitive atmosphere every day as much as the left-handed side. As you’re coming up through the minor leagues and you’re a switch hitter, you see your left-handed pitchers for maybe, maybe a quarter of your at-bats.”

When considering Moncada's bat control, Leury Garcia comes to mind for me. His swing appeared to have no reliable plane in his first couple years with the Sox. At times he had an uppercut, and at other times he chopped at it. Imagine a lumberjack felling a tree while daydreaming about the driving range. It resulted in a lot of swinging strikes on pitches comfortably in the zone.

He eventually got that problem under control, but that work largely took place in the minors.

(*Over 15 PA in MLB)

Starting at a 17-year-old in the Texas system, Garcia amassed about 3,000 professional plate appearances to his credit before getting enough control of his swing to contribute at the major league level. Moncada is about halfway there, and doing all of his polishing at the majors.

It's natural to wonder if Moncada would be better off giving up hitting righty, except it's probably less natural for him to track same-sided pitching, given the lack of any recent experience doing so. Instead, it's probably going to be a process, the way Garcia and Sanchez needed multiple cracks at MLB pitching before they found ways to stick. That Moncada is already raking with a left-handed swing puts him well ahead of those curves.