The Red Sox and Kansas City Royals are exchanging promising players who missed most or all of the 2022 season.
First reported by MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, the Sox will receive infielder Adalberto Mondesí, who missed all but 15 games last year due to a torn ACL, and a player to be named later or cash considerations in exchange for left-handed reliever Josh Taylor, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021 due to back issues. The Red Sox have confirmed the trade.
Ahead of Red Sox Winter Weekend last Friday, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom made it clear that fortifying the middle infield was a top priority. Now, the Sox are giving up a solid bullpen piece for a more expensive player with fewer years of club control in order to do so. Taylor is set to earn $1.03M this year and won’t reach free agency until 2026, while the Royals avoided arbitration with Mondesí by agreeing to a $3.045M salary; he’s on track for free agency after the upcoming season.
The Sox are giving up a pitcher who excels at limiting lefties; over 107 career games thus far, Taylor has held lefty batters to a .174/.249/.230 line. Prior to missing the entire 2022 season with a back injury, he’d had been one of Boston’s most reliable relievers since his 2019 debut. In 2021, southpaw, who will turn 30 in March, posted a 3.40 ERA across 47 2/3 innings.
Taylor is is stingy with home runs (career rate of 2.1%) and well above-average with strikeouts (29.4%). In 2021, he ranked in the 92nd percentile in Whiff% and 83rd in K%. However, walks have been an issue (career 10%) and he’s struggled to limit hard contact.
Who’s the new guy? Son of Raúl Mondesí, a 13-year MLB veteran who won 1994 NL Rookie of the Year and two Gold Gloves, Adalberto’s big-league career began in a unique and historic way. As a 20-year-old top prospect in 2015, he became the first player in major-league history to make their debut during the World Series. James “Bug” Holliday debuted with the Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs) in the 1885 World’s Championship between the National League and the American Association of Base Ball Clubs.
Mondesí is a career .244/.280/.408 hitter, but brings much-needed defensive depth to a weak middle infield that will be without Xander Bogaerts for the first time in a decade and without Trevor Story for at least several months of the season. Kiké Hernández is slated to be the everyday shortstop, while Christian Arroyo will handle second base. Rob Refsnyder and Niko Goodrum, signed to a minor-league contract, offer infield depth as well.
Primarily a shortstop (241 starts), Mondesí has also made 64 career starts at second and 20 at third in his seven big-league seasons. Partially due to the Royals having more everyday infield options, he’s only played more than 60 games once in his career, when he played 102 games in 2019. Of course, no one played more than 60 games in 2020.
Mondesí is also one of the fastest runners in the game. Between 2016-21, he’s been between the 85th and 100th percentile in speed each season. Cumulatively, his 29.9 ft/sec sprint speed over those six seasons was the eighth-fastest among all qualified players (min. 10 opportunities). Over that same span, he averaged 21 stolen bases per season, including a career-high 43 in 2019. During the shortened 2020 season, he led MLB with 24 stolen bases. Though he only played 15 games last year, he still stole five bases, which would have tied Christian Arroyo for fourth-most on the ’22 Red Sox.
The trade is promising, but carries significant injury risk. Mondesí’s enormous potential has been hampered by frequent injuries; including missing almost all of last season, he’s been on the injured list seven times since 2018. The laundry list includes oblique, hamstring, groin, and both shoulders, including surgery for a left-shoulder subluxation. He’ll fit right in with a roster full of “if he stays healthy” guys.
Mondesí also received an 80-game suspension in May 2016 for violating the league’s performance-enhancing substance ban, but the suspension was reduced to 50 games when he was able to prove that the banned substance, clenbuterol, had been an ingredient in his cold medicine.
