Exactly two minutes before the 2022 trade deadline hit, Phillies bench coach Mike Calitri came strolling out to center field, and a 24-year-old Mickey Moniak knew his time in Philadelphia was done.
He was the league’s No. 1 pick in 2016. But his star dulled across six years, yanked up and down and across the farm. At 5:58 p.m. ET that August, Calitri slung an arm around Moniak and walked him to the dugout. Whispering pleasantries. Whispering thanks.
And as his cleats moved across the outfield grass in Atlanta to his next stop, Moniak was convinced he was getting traded to the Colorado Rockies.
Back in 2016’s draft, the Rockies had an agreement with Moniak and his agent in place if he fell to pick No. 4, Moniak recalled. The Phillies, though, nabbed him first. Still, the Rockies’ interest in Moniak had “always come up” over the years, Moniak’s father, Matt, said.
“They’ve always kinda liked me as a player,” Moniak told The Denver Post. “Feel like I can do everything pretty well.”
Moniak ended up shipped off to the Angels in that summer of 2022. Three years later, though — nine years after Colorado first pushed its chips in to land him — the Rockies finally got their man, thrusting Moniak into the fray in right field as the organization searches for upside in any possible nook and cranny.
He arrived in Tampa to join the Rockies on March 27, exactly one day before opening day. General manager Bill Schmidt came up to re-introduce himself, formerly a leader in the Rockies’ scouting department back in 2016.
“You remember me?” Schmidt asked Moniak, as told by his father.
“Yeah,” Moniak responded. “You were sitting at my dining room table.”
A decade later, the now-27-year-old is a much different man than the boy who once sat with Schmidt. A butterfly tattoo is inked into his right hand; a symbol of reincarnation, Moniak explained, for family members he’s lost. He got married in January. But he still has yet to truly find himself on a baseball field, a veteran still fighting for a chance to fight through lost reps.
The Phillies’ organization, Calitri told The Post, still loves Moniak. The fanbase might be a different story. He dug in for his first at-bat in Wednesday’s game at Coors and was met by a faint scattering of boos from a sizeable Philadelphia contingent in the seats. He was optioned and recalled from Triple-A Lehigh Valley to Philadelphia exactly six times in 2021, before they jettisoned him in the midst of a run to a National League pennant.
“They were in win-now mode,” Moniak said. “I was still young, trying to learn how to play the game at the big-league level. So, there wasn’t a huge leash as far as the grace of being able to go out there and go 0-fer and try to figure stuff out.”
The Angels gave him a leash, for the most part, for two years. He caught his star in a bottle in 2023, raking for three months: .313 average, 11 homers in 201 at-bats, missiles rocketing from his 195-pound frame.
From August 2023 through 2024, though, Moniak scuffled to a .219 clip and was unceremoniously released by the Angels three days before March’s opening day.
“I got released,” he texted his father on March 25, long after he had gone to sleep.
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
The Rockies jumped immediately, a journey come full-circle.
“I mean Mickey has pedigree, because Mickey’s 1:1,” Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer said Wednesday. “I mean, he was drafted first overall, whatever year that was. And I think everybody likes Mickey. But, I feel like, Mickey can thrive here, for sure.”
He’s scuffled for stretches since arriving in Colorado. He’s currently Schaeffer’s right fielder of choice against right-handers, slashing .227/.275/.391 through two months in a Rockies jersey. But Moniak’s underlying metrics point to a better ballplayer, and an impending breakout. His expected batting average is .273. His solid-contact percentage is the highest of his career. His strikeout rate, once his biggest concern as a Phillies prospect, is his lowest.
And all of these years later, Calitri still sees a player with enough talent, as he said, to “play every day for any club.”
Moniak sees it, too.
“In ‘23, I feel like I kinda set a floor for myself to show what I can do, at the very worst,” Moniak said. “And ‘23 at the best, so far. But I feel like there’s more in the tank.”
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