Red Sox Add to Already Potent Lineup with Yoan Moncada Call-Up

The Boston Red Sox have baseball's best offense, a lineup with a pleasing mix of speedsters and mashers and everything in between, one nearly without holes. On the pitching side of things, though, the team has its problems. David Price has so far failed to justify the $217 million contract he signed this past offseason, knuckleballer Steven Wright has struggled since his return from an August DL stint, and Rick Porcello, somehow, has emerged as the staff ace. The relief corps has been hampered by injuries and by Craig Kimbrel's being merely very good instead of the lights-out closer he was during his Atlanta days.

The time to improve the pitching has come and gone, with Drew Pomeranz the only deadline addition Boston could muster. That is to say, the Red Sox from here on out will be riding with their bats, so it behooves them to turn a lineup nearly without holes to one completely without them. Enter Yoan Moncada.

Wednesday night, Boston announced that Moncada, Baseball America's top prospect, would be called up for September, starting with Friday night's game in Oakland. The 21 year-old Cuban has the kind of resume that gets prospect hounds making faces like a cartoon wolf. He gets on base (.411 OBP between single- and double-A this year), hits homers (15), steals bags (45), and has a quick glove and accurate infield arm. He switch-hits and plays second by trade, though with Dustin Pedroia firmly in that spot, the Red Sox will likely use him at third, where Travish Shaw and Aaron Hill have made an only marginally effective platoon.

Back in July, at the All-Star Futures game in San Diego, the World team trailed the United States 3-2 in the eighth when Moncada came to the plate with one man on. He got a 1-0, middle-middle offering and did not miss it (watch here if only to listen to the crack of the bat). The swing was clipped and powerful, and the ball sailed out to the second deck in left, giving the World team a lead it would not relinquish and helping Moncada win MVP honors. The shot also served as shorthand for everything that makes Moncada so enticing: the sturdy legs and fast-twitch hands, the opportunistic approach, the bat-control that looks like it belongs to a 10-year MLB veteran.

Boston manager John Farrell expects a lot. Speaking with reporters before the call-up, he didn't shy away from invoking big names. "I think Yoan would be in a similar category of when [Jacoby Ellsbury] came to the big leagues, when [Xander Bogaerts] came to the big leagues, and [Andrew] Benintendi is obviously already here," he said, citing recent Red Sox who supplied late-season shots of life and, in the case of Ellsbury and Bogaerts, eventually became All-Stars. "I wouldn't separate him out from that comparison at all."

There aren't many settings better than the current Red Sox roster for a young hitter learning on the job. Moncada will settle in among Mookie Betts, David Ortiz, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Hanley Ramirez, and Jackie Bradley, Jr. He'll get his pitches. September in Boston should be fun.