Anderson, Moncada, and the lesson of Joe Crede

[Greg Hibbard]

In the wake of the Kopech injury, as the season has turned more and more meaningless, I've been thinking a lot about Moncada and Anderson's numbers and whether they are "good" or not. 

What's strange about this is that 20 years ago, I would have thought for two young players 18ish homers and 40+ xbh, as fairly good, batting average aside.  Add in Moncada's walk rate and Anderson's stolen bases, and some of their respective defensive plays and upside, and I think years ago many would have thought "these players are just fine, they just need time"

However, that's NOT what's going on. The board is at least somewhat divided on whether both are going to be as good as they can be to significantly contribute to this team. 

Then I thought about Joe Crede.

Joe Crede was one of the most frustrating players to root for from 2003-2004. After his rookie season of 2002 (he had a handful of PAs in 2000-2001), he had a very difficult time keeping his batting average, on base percentage, and OPS high enough to be acceptable for the next two seasons. He also had a difficult time keeping his WAR up, even with his defensive prowess. 

In his first 279 MLB PAs, he did very well - an over .800 OPS, great defense, tons of promise, WAR of 0.8 (with only 40% of a season). 

However, over the next 1123 MLB PAs, from 2003-2004, he did NOT do as well: a .251/.304/.424/.728, with a combined WAR of 3.2, averaging 1.6 per season. It obviously wasn't horrible or anything, but it wasn't something that I think White Sox fans felt they could necessarily live with as a long term option. My recollection was that fans were pretty unsure about him, in general. His two saving graces were his ability to hit homers and his defense. 

In 2003-2004 Joe Crede was 25 and 26 years old, and at the end of that time he had 1402 MLB PAs to his credit. 

As of the end of 2004, his stats were: .256/.304/.434/.738 career. Not bad, but just a seemingly just little above replacement. His career WAR was roughly 3.8 at this point.

HOWEVER....

The next three complete seasons (and the injury shortened 2007) that Crede played were his best, and indubitably he was utterly essential to our championship run. I don't think anyone would argue that if we didn't have Joe Crede we would have won the 2005 championship. 

His combined 2005-2008 stats were: .258/.308/.453/.761 and his WAR over that span was 7.6 - twice the value of the previous four years over about the same number of PAs. 

All of this is to say that Moncada's WAR is currently 2.4 for his career at just 23 with about 800 PAs, and Anderson's is 4.5 at 25 through a little over 1400 PAs (ironically exactly the point Crede broke out himself) 

I think because Moncada was acquired in the Sale trade and we all expect instant gratification for players there is very little patience for MLB development. 

However, I think Crede (even as a lower rated prospect initially) is a great example of a player who gave us well over 1000 PAs at the MLB level before he was able to truly break out. 

Thoughts? 

 

 

  

 

 

[WBWSF]

Ted Williams always said  you can tell what type of a hitter you have after 1,500 at bats.

[Two-Gun Pete]

[shrugs] I just look at Moncada, and wonder why the fuck he was brought up when he had OBESE K issues, RHH issues, and was far from a finished product. I also wonder if the [snicker] coaches/manager in Chicago know WTF they're doing.

Since it appears as though little-to-no progress has been made on his part, I wonder if Moncada will ever improve, or if this stupid org just pissed the potential of the former #1 prospect away. I also watch Sale pitch, and groan at having squandered him in trade for a pile of Ks, a TJS, and a Basabe twin.

Here's hoping Moncada can rise above all this, despite the abject lack of on-field and front office leadership in this organization, and that Kopech's measly 14.1 IP was worth the 2 squandered years of control. 

Edited September 12, 2018 by Two-Gun Pete

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

6 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

Ted Williams always said  you can tell what type of a hitter you have after 1,500 at bats.

Did he really? I said the exact same thing to a guy at work, and added for pitchers I would wait for 500 IP. I feel like a GOD DAMN GENIUS.

[BlackSox13]

Going to be fun to see what inchlongwrigleydong thinks...

Great post Greg. I think you're spot on.

[Jerksticks]

2 hours ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

[shrugs] I just look at Moncada, and wonder why the fuck he was brought up when he had OBESE K issues, RHH issues, and was far from a finished product. I also wonder if the [snicker] coaches/manager in Chicago know WTF they're doing.

Since it appears as though little-to-no progress has been made on his part, I wonder if Moncada will ever improve, or if this stupid org just pissed the potential of the former #1 prospect away. I also watch Sale pitch, and groan at having squandered him in trade for a pile of Ks, a TJS, and a Basabe twin.

Here's hoping Moncada can rise above all this, despite the abject lack of on-field and front office leadership in this organization, and that Kopech's measly 14.1 IP was worth the 2 squandered years of control. 

Squandered?  Ok man, ? 

[black jack]

I used to call him "Joe and 2" because it seemed like he was 0 and 2 every at bat.

[NWINFan]

Your assessment of Crede is right on, and it can apply to others. However, Crede had two advantages: He still was an excellent defensive player and he played on a team that a lineup of power hitters. While Crede had embarrassing at bats, the Sox had the likes of Lee, Ordonez, Thomas and Valentin. Moncada has a lot of light on him because the Sox want the trade to work out, and the team is also losing.  In other situations, Moncada might have been sent back down to sort things out. Instead he struggles and looks bad and the team looks bad.

There are drawbacks to a complete tear down. The Moncada situation is one of them.

 

[Balta1701]

There are 2 types of players who are disappointing after their first 750-1000 plate appearances. Guys who break out and become successes, and disappointing players.

The fact that you can look back in time and find examples of guys who struggled early and then did break out into much better players does provide some hope for both of them. Furthermore, the fact that it can happen suddenly, as with the example you gave, should also provide some hope.

However...the fact that you had to go back 13 years to find the last recent example for this franchise should also make one wonder how rare those breakouts are.

[Eminor3rd]

Good job, Greg Hibbard. You "get it." 

Sit back, relax, and strap it down. There aren't going to be a lot of wins the next couple years, but if you know what to look for, you can have fun following these players as they do their best to become the next White Sox World Series contender.

[Dick Allen]

11 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

In the wake of the Kopech injury, as the season has turned more and more meaningless, I've been thinking a lot about Moncada and Anderson's numbers and whether they are "good" or not. 

What's strange about this is that 20 years ago, I would have thought for two young players 18ish homers and 40+ xbh, as fairly good, batting average aside.  Add in Moncada's walk rate and Anderson's stolen bases, and some of their respective defensive plays and upside, and I think years ago many would have thought "these players are just fine, they just need time"

However, that's NOT what's going on. The board is at least somewhat divided on whether both are going to be as good as they can be to significantly contribute to this team. 

Then I thought about Joe Crede.

Joe Crede was one of the most frustrating players to root for from 2003-2004. After his rookie season of 2002 (he had a handful of PAs in 2000-2001), he had a very difficult time keeping his batting average, on base percentage, and OPS high enough to be acceptable for the next two seasons. He also had a difficult time keeping his WAR up, even with his defensive prowess. 

In his first 279 MLB PAs, he did very well - an over .800 OPS, great defense, tons of promise, WAR of 0.8 (with only 40% of a season). 

However, over the next 1123 MLB PAs, from 2003-2004, he did NOT do as well: a .251/.304/.424/.728, with a combined WAR of 3.2, averaging 1.6 per season. It obviously wasn't horrible or anything, but it wasn't something that I think White Sox fans felt they could necessarily live with as a long term option. My recollection was that fans were pretty unsure about him, in general. His two saving graces were his ability to hit homers and his defense. 

In 2003-2004 Joe Crede was 25 and 26 years old, and at the end of that time he had 1402 MLB PAs to his credit. 

As of the end of 2004, his stats were: .256/.304/.434/.738 career. Not bad, but just a seemingly just little above replacement. His career WAR was roughly 3.8 at this point.

HOWEVER....

The next three complete seasons (and the injury shortened 2007) that Crede played were his best, and indubitably he was utterly essential to our championship run. I don't think anyone would argue that if we didn't have Joe Crede we would have won the 2005 championship. 

His combined 2005-2008 stats were: .258/.308/.453/.761 and his WAR over that span was 7.6 - twice the value of the previous four years over about the same number of PAs. 

All of this is to say that Moncada's WAR is currently 2.4 for his career at just 23 with about 800 PAs, and Anderson's is 4.5 at 25 through a little over 1400 PAs (ironically exactly the point Crede broke out himself) 

I think because Moncada was acquired in the Sale trade and we all expect instant gratification for players there is very little patience for MLB development. 

However, I think Crede (even as a lower rated prospect initially) is a great example of a player who gave us well over 1000 PAs at the MLB level before he was able to truly break out. 

Thoughts? 

 

 

  

 

 

Crede was having a monster season in 2006, hitting over .300 with a high OBP and would have hit well over 30 homers with GG defense, but his back gave out the final month. It would have been interesting to see what he could have done with his career if he had remained healthy. 

I am not worried about Moncada yet. I do think he is perhaps a bit too selective and gets himself into holes where an umpire can call him out on anything within a few inches of the zone. A couple of hot streaks may actually get him some calls. 

One thing we forget is he like Robert missed a lot of time playing games, getting set up to sign a contract,, so that might have hurt their development a bit.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Dick Allen

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, NWINFan said:

Your assessment of Crede is right on, and it can apply to others. However, Crede had two advantages: He still was an excellent defensive player and he played on a team that a lineup of power hitters. While Crede had embarrassing at bats, the Sox had the likes of Lee, Ordonez, Thomas and Valentin. Moncada has a lot of light on him because the Sox want the trade to work out, and the team is also losing.  In other situations, Moncada might have been sent back down to sort things out. Instead he struggles and looks bad and the team looks bad.

There are drawbacks to a complete tear down. The Moncada situation is one of them.

 

If you are trying to say that Anderson and Moncada are not good defensive players, you aren't being very accurate.  First off Joe Crede really wasn't known as a good defender until a few years into his career, and definitely not right off of the bat.  Secondly, Anderson already IS a very good defensive player, and Moncada outside of a really bad midseason defensive slump, has had a solid defensive year, and has all of the tools to be a gold glover in the same time frame that it took Crede to become one.

[NWINFan]

38 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

If you are trying to say that Anderson and Moncada are not good defensive players, you aren't being very accurate.  First off Joe Crede really wasn't known as a good defender until a few years into his career, and definitely not right off of the bat.  Secondly, Anderson already IS a very good defensive player, and Moncada outside of a really bad midseason defensive slump, has had a solid defensive year, and has all of the tools to be a gold glover in the same time frame that it took Crede to become one.

I am not saying that either is not a good defensive player. What I am saying is that Crede had the luxary of developing because his offensive contributions were needed as much because he was on a good hitting club. Moncada's offensive woes are magnified because this Sox team is, at best, average offensively.  Crede was highly touted from the moment he came to the team, and I don't recall him ever being a liability at third.

You're twisting what I said. What I am getting at is Moncada has to feel pressure as he tries to become a major league hitter. That has nothing to do with his defense or Anderson's defense even though Anderson made some weird looking plays last year.

[Greg Hibbard]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

There are 2 types of players who are disappointing after their first 750-1000 plate appearances. Guys who break out and become successes, and disappointing players.

The fact that you can look back in time and find examples of guys who struggled early and then did break out into much better players does provide some hope for both of them. Furthermore, the fact that it can happen suddenly, as with the example you gave, should also provide some hope.

However...the fact that you had to go back 13 years to find the last recent example for this franchise should also make one wonder how rare those breakouts are.

Balta, I had to go back thirteen years because the 2005-2011 teams that was consistently competing for a divisional title was in large part retooled with FA from outside the organization. Podsednik, Pierzynski, Garcia, Contreras, Jim Thome, even Nick Swisher was brought in as a supposedly "proven" veteran. Outside of Beckham and Ramirez, who did we really even attempt to develop in that era? Maybe Brian Anderson who Guillen later admitted he actually didn't like for entirely non-baseball reasons? After Guillen left, the 2012-2015 strategy was still locked into the retool mentality - Abreu came up and was ML ready, but guys like Dunn, LaRoche, Melky were guys who were brought in, not developed. This is really the first time since the late 1990s early 2000s we have really tried to develop talent from the minor leagues organization wide.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Greg Hibbard

[Greg Hibbard]

16 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

I am not saying that either is not a good defensive player. What I am saying is that Crede had the luxary of developing because his offensive contributions were needed as much because he was on a good hitting club. Moncada's offensive woes are magnified because this Sox team is, at best, average offensively.  Crede was highly touted from the moment he came to the team, and I don't recall him ever being a liability at third.

You're twisting what I said. What I am getting at is Moncada has to feel pressure as he tries to become a major league hitter. That has nothing to do with his defense or Anderson's defense even though Anderson made some weird looking plays last year.

I agree with your point before about Crede having the luxury of being developed, because we didn't need his offense. That's an excellent point. The interesting thing about Crede, though, was that he emerged as a real offensive threat when many of those power hitters left (Lee, Ordonez were gone after 2004 and Thomas missed most of 2005). You would think it might be the opposite, because he no longer had so much protection. Remember the 2005 team was really a pitching team more than a power hitting team.

I think your point about Moncada and pressure is also a good one and I think Jimenez will take a great deal of pressure off of that when he comes up.

[southsider2k5]

I also would like to point out that there is probably a bit of fuzzy memories going on here with Joe Crede.  The guy was a career 92 OPS+ hitter.  He had a total of two years in his career where he was over a 100 OPS+, one of them being in a season of 209 PA's.

Yoan Monada is sitting at a career total of 93 OPS+ and at 92 this year, or right in line with Crede's career totals.

Tim Anderson is setting at a career total of 90, and at 93 OPS+ for this season.

These guys are already as good as Joe Crede was for his career.

[Greg Hibbard]

11 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

I also would like to point out that there is probably a bit of fuzzy memories going on here with Joe Crede.  The guy was a career 92 OPS+ hitter.  He had a total of two years in his career where he was over a 100 OPS+, one of them being in a season of 209 PA's.

Yoan Monada is sitting at a career total of 93 OPS+ and at 92 this year, or right in line with Crede's career totals.

Tim Anderson is setting at a career total of 90, and at 93 OPS+ for this season.

These guys are already as good as Joe Crede was for his career.

That's a hidden part of my point - nobody would say Joe Crede wasn't an absolutely invaluable part of the 2005 championship. He was a huge part. Moncada and Anderson can be two cogs with Jimenez, eventually Kopech, Cease, Giolito, Lopez, hopefully Madrigal and Robert in the 2022-2024 window we are ramping up to. As well as whatever FA we are bringing in. Could you imagine bringing in Arenado after next year?

Edited September 12, 2018 by Greg Hibbard

[hi8is]

Used to call him Joe “I can do nothing but hit pop ups” Crede.

[pcq]

20 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

In the wake of the Kopech injury, as the season has turned more and more meaningless, I've been thinking a lot about Moncada and Anderson's numbers and whether they are "good" or not. 

What's strange about this is that 20 years ago, I would have thought for two young players 18ish homers and 40+ xbh, as fairly good, batting average aside.  Add in Moncada's walk rate and Anderson's stolen bases, and some of their respective defensive plays and upside, and I think years ago many would have thought "these players are just fine, they just need time"

However, that's NOT what's going on. The board is at least somewhat divided on whether both are going to be as good as they can be to significantly contribute to this team. 

Then I thought about Joe Crede.

Joe Crede was one of the most frustrating players to root for from 2003-2004. After his rookie season of 2002 (he had a handful of PAs in 2000-2001), he had a very difficult time keeping his batting average, on base percentage, and OPS high enough to be acceptable for the next two seasons. He also had a difficult time keeping his WAR up, even with his defensive prowess. 

In his first 279 MLB PAs, he did very well - an over .800 OPS, great defense, tons of promise, WAR of 0.8 (with only 40% of a season). 

However, over the next 1123 MLB PAs, from 2003-2004, he did NOT do as well: a .251/.304/.424/.728, with a combined WAR of 3.2, averaging 1.6 per season. It obviously wasn't horrible or anything, but it wasn't something that I think White Sox fans felt they could necessarily live with as a long term option. My recollection was that fans were pretty unsure about him, in general. His two saving graces were his ability to hit homers and his defense. 

In 2003-2004 Joe Crede was 25 and 26 years old, and at the end of that time he had 1402 MLB PAs to his credit. 

As of the end of 2004, his stats were: .256/.304/.434/.738 career. Not bad, but just a seemingly just little above replacement. His career WAR was roughly 3.8 at this point.

HOWEVER....

The next three complete seasons (and the injury shortened 2007) that Crede played were his best, and indubitably he was utterly essential to our championship run. I don't think anyone would argue that if we didn't have Joe Crede we would have won the 2005 championship. 

His combined 2005-2008 stats were: .258/.308/.453/.761 and his WAR over that span was 7.6 - twice the value of the previous four years over about the same number of PAs. 

All of this is to say that Moncada's WAR is currently 2.4 for his career at just 23 with about 800 PAs, and Anderson's is 4.5 at 25 through a little over 1400 PAs (ironically exactly the point Crede broke out himself) 

I think because Moncada was acquired in the Sale trade and we all expect instant gratification for players there is very little patience for MLB development. 

However, I think Crede (even as a lower rated prospect initially) is a great example of a player who gave us well over 1000 PAs at the MLB level before he was able to truly break out. 

Thoughts? 

 

 

  

 

 

My Joe Crede lesson is that flopping on your belly to make plays will ruin your back. Moncada could benefit from less scrutiny. It's not helping. 

[kitekrazy]

Nice post and you can also go back to Robin Ventura when he came up they just expected him to field his position.

[Ducksnort]

15 hours ago, pcq said:

My Joe Crede lesson is that flopping on your belly to make plays will ruin your back. Moncada could benefit from less scrutiny. It's not helping. 

Lol Crede did do that belly flop often didn't he. But damn did he make some amazing plays while doing it.

[Harry Chappas]

18 hours ago, hi8is said:

Used to call him Joe “I can do nothing but hit pop ups” Crede.

The guy was all over the place...huge clutch hits....great defense.....lot of infield pop ups 

[Kyyle23]

18 hours ago, hi8is said:

Used to call him Joe “I can do nothing but hit pop ups” Crede.

I believe it was simply Credepopsitup, and GiDPauly in the gamethreads.  I want to say Credepopsitup actually was a member name as well

[southsider2k5]

Timely

 

[RockfordJim]

Joe didn't really turn it on until mid August 2005. Even in July, I heard people saying they should dump him because he couldn't hit. Suddenly, just as the team started to turn south he started to hit. I remember that he had to miss a few games for personal reasons in September which was a real downer because he was the only guy hitting at that point. I still remember that 10th inning walkoff homerun against Cleveland late in the year. He had a great postseason, a great 06 (until he was hurt) and then came back strong.

 

So, keep hope alive for Moncada. As far as Anderson goes, in my book he has proven he is a big-league shortstop defensively and he has the potential to become elite with his offense.