Player Breakdown: Mickey Moniak
Breaking down Moniak's breakout 2025 season and evaluating for 2026
I have started the long process of writing the 2026 team previews. And I figured it makes sense to send some extra articles out by giving you early looks in the form of isolated player write-ups.
So I’ll pick the most interesting player or two from a team as I write them and publish the write-ups as standalone posts. Starting with Mickey Moniak from Colorado.
Mickey Moniak
Age: 27
Pos: OF
The former #1 overall pick finally had some success in the Majors in 2025. The Rockies are Moniak’s third team after spending time with the Phillies and the Angels.
He had some success in that 2023 season, but it was mostly a mirage. He wasn’t fooling anybody with that 35% K% and 2.8% BB%, and it all fell apart as expected. 2024 was a disaster in LA, and he ended up at the bottom of the barrel with the Rockies.
But he was a bright spot for Colorado, slashing .270/.306/.518 with 24 homers and nine steals. I mean, it didn’t help the team that much since they only won those 43 games, but at least Moniak gave them some moments.
The main thing to highlight is this plate discipline progression.
It’s not surprising to see a 40% K% come down. That’s the only direction it can go. But to drop it from 35% to 24% in two years is impressive, and he got the walk rate away from the league’s lowest.
The home/road splits are pretty wild. I’ve added those to the Hitter Profile pages so you can see them quickly right below pitcher hand splits:
A 173-point gap in SLG with a four-point difference in strikeouts. Coors Field is a helluva drug.
As a former 1.1 pick, the guy must have tools.
81st percentile sprint speed and 73rd-percentile bat speed. He also hit a ton of line drives with a 37.6% sweet spot rate. The Statcast page is pretty enticing.
The issue has always been a lack of plate discipline, as we’ve already seen. But I want to reiterate that. This guy went for a 47% chase rate from 2023-2023. It got a little better this year, but at some level the leopard can’t change his spots.
Chase% Leaders, 2022-2025
Francisco Mejia 53%
Oscar Gonzalez 50%
Christian Bethancourt 48%
Ceddanne Rafaela 47%
Salvador Perez 47%
Javier Baez 47%
Harold Ramirez 47%
Yainer Diaz 47%
Ezequiel Tovar 46%
Edmundo Sosa 46%
Tomas Nido 45%
Pete Crow-Armstrong 44%
Mickey Moniak 44%
Harold Castro 44%
Raimel Tapia 43%
I put the active players in bold. I guess it’s not fair, because I didn’t dunk on Tovar for his chase rate. You notice that these free swingers typically don’t have a ton of success, but it’s almost not a death sentence. If you pair a good zone-contact rate plus power and speed, you can be fine. Moniak’s improvements in strikeout rate and zone-contact rate are a big deal, and they make you believe that, at minimum, he can stay in the lineup next year and hit some homers and have some big weeks while he’s at it.