Bust Warning: Adalberto Mondesi's Speed May Be Blinding Us From His Shortcomings

I wrote about how Royals SS Adalberto Mondesi has the potential to be in the early part of Round 1 of next season’s drafts here. At the time of that writing, he was inside the Top 30 ADP, and has since dropped ever so slightly to No. 34 overall. Today I’ll make the case against Mondesi, possibly the player in 2021 with the single widest range of outcomes in fantasy. It seems like the fantasy community might be leaning toward this train of thought on the speedster, even if I am hoping we are seeing the next Jose Reyes.

The obvious appeal for Mondesi is his speed, which I covered at length. He posted a 98th percentile Speed Score last season and stole 24 bases in just 59 games, all with a sub-.300 OBP. That’s not easy to do at all, but the .294 OBP he posted is where the case against Mondesi begins. Truthfully, while he has the potential to start for the American League in the All-Star game this year, there’s a world in which he returns to the minors for additional seasoning.

Mondesi has yet to post a walk rate better than 5% in the majors, and his strikeout rate has risen for two straight seasons. He struck out 30% of the time in 2020, and hit just .256 despite an elite Speed Score and a BABIP of .350. In fact, it was the second season in which he failed to bat .265 despite having a BABIP of .350 or higher. While his speed should be enough for him to maintain strong BABIP numbers, he simply has not been a good enough hitter to capitalize.

It is possible for players to be fantasy assets and above-average bats without walks. For some, they’re simply aggressive hitters who make lots of contact, or power hitters whose home run and RBI production outweigh the on-base shortfalls. To date, Mondesi is neither. He posted a 62.7% contact rate in 2020, the worst of his career, and he’s seen MLB action every year since 2016. Mondesi’s still young, and he’s never played more than 102 games in a single season, but it’s looking increasingly like he’s just not a very good hitter. That’s problematic for a player whose entire value is then derived from stolen bases; you need to be on base to steal them, and you need to reach base to even warrant plate appearances in the first place. Mondesi made some strides, swinging at 4% fewer pitches outside the zone, but he still made contact on just 78% of his swings at pitches within the strike zone. That contact rate flat out stinks, and without walks he’s going to be a sink on fantasy teams that play in leagues with OBP or OPS as categories. It also means he must post outlandish BABIP totals, or we could see a catastrophic batting average drop a la Javier Baez, which was covered here. And at least Baez has had a track record of power before his 2020 flameout; Mondesi has never even gotten to 15 home runs in a season.

In all likelihood, Mondesi is a pretty sure bet to be of some value in Roto and categories leagues. Even if he craters as a hitter, he’s going to be one of the MLB leaders in stolen bases unless he just loses his job. While a disastrous season could result in that, Mondesi is a core piece of an obviously rebuilding club, so the odds are that he’ll be given every chance to work through slumps and then some. Kansas City just doesn’t have better options anywhere on the team. But he still carries bust risk, because a player who only provides steals, while somewhat useful, absolutely doesn’t warrant a Top 35 selection. And to believe in Mondesi’s ability to progress much more as a hitter, at age 25 with more than 1,100 plate appearances under his belt, you have to really buy into his strong Statcast numbers and ability to keep producing extremely high BABIPs. It’s an admittedly tough sell, but it’s also very hard to find real stolen base help with even passable production in other hitting areas, so I still am on Team Mondesi.