Phillies’ Mickey Moniak failure looms large as he puts up solid hitting stats for Rockies

Billy Heyen

Phillies’ Mickey Moniak failure looms large as he puts up solid hitting stats for Rockies image

The Philadelphia Phillies have dealt with a number of injuries and struggles this season for their hitters.

So many, in fact, that Philly's former No. 1 overall pick, Mickey Moniak, would rank second on the team in home runs.

Problem: He plays for the Colorado Rockies.

Moniak is having a solid season in Denver, with a .798 OPS that includes 12 homers (along with eight doubles and five triples) while spending most of his time in centerfield.

In an alternate universe, maybe he's doing that in Philadelphia.

The Phillies took Moniak with the top pick in the 2016 MLB Draft from La Costa Canyon High School in California.

It took him four years to make his MLB debut, and in the end, Moniak played only 47 games for the Phillies across three seasons before he was sent to the Angels.

He was better for the Angels, but they discarded him after three seasons there, too. The Rockies picked Moniak up off the scrap heap before the season.

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He's closing in on his career-high of 14 home runs.

Sure, it's all happening on an entirely uncompetitive Rockies team.

But it's still a solid season at the dish for the 27-year old Moniak.

For the Phillies, he'll always go down as a draft bust. Although, frankly, that 2016 draft might have the ugliest first-round outcomes in MLB history, so there's not even some clearly obvious fix the Phillies could make in reverse.

It's just a bad break, and some irony, that the Phillies could've finally seen Moniak break through if only they'd kept him around a few more years.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle