The full armada had arrived in Encinitas, anyone who was anyone in the 2016 Philadelphia Phillies front office flying to a humble beach town to see the boy who was tearing San Diego apart.
The Phillies had the first pick in that year’s draft, and La Costa Canyon’s Mickey Moniak was almost certainly their man. So there was former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, La Costa Canyon coach Justin Machado and executive Pat Gillick recalls, and a platoon of top scouts for a normal high school baseball game in April.
“It was crazy,” recalls Matt, Moniak’s father. “We were still barely talking about it, because [Mickey] was so straight in professional ball.
Seven years later, when asked about that day in front of his Angel Stadium locker, the 25-year-old outfielder merely shrugged. His cap was perched upside down and his hands slung over his shoulder. Moniak is disarmingly nonchalant – the honest, not dismissive kind, the kind who just grew up in Encinitas sandals and swim shorts.
Expectations, he pursed his lips, are expectations. People are going to get them — when you have scouting directors showing up at every high school practice, when you have 80 scouts watching your batting practices, when you become one of the 59 first-round picks in history.
“To be honest with you, I mean, I knew they were coming,” Moniak said, recalling that day on April 14 playing in front of the Phillies squad. “But I didn’t think twice about it.”
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That day, Moniak hit for the cycle, went five-for-five and with eight RBIs.
“Just a regular day at Mickey,” Machado said.
There’s a long-running tagline in the La Costa Canyon program, drawing a smile from Moniak when asked about it: “Just Cruisin’.” It’s quite literal, for him; just how they roll. just how he rolls years later, navigating years of inconsistency and injury as the baseball world has soured enough to dangle him on a six-month lease to Noah Syndergaard at last year’s deadline.
Her rapid departure this season, finally with consistent playing time, made sense. His dominance a hundred plate appearances later — he’s batting .331 in 169 at bats — is less. He is offensive throws without dropping, walking after hitting, jumping on pitches in the zone to the tune of 11 home runs and a .977 on-base plus slugging percentage.
Is it really sustainable, an approach so dominated by natural hand-eye coordination, an approach that draws its sword and looks down against hordes of modern analytical thought about the luck of the batted ball? Probably not. But ask Machado: this approach has been the same since his high school days. Same as his personality.
And now, at least, the conviction that Moniak has held for years is evident: the success is in that. In him.
“I definitely tried to…deal with life when it comes to me,” Moniak said. “Try to be where my feet are.”
Since Moniak started playing an hour away from his home, his family has usually been seated in the second-to-last row of Section 209 at Angel Stadium.
A while ago, Mike said, former Angels player and longtime manager Bobby Valentine came to a game and sat in the row directly behind them. The two struck up a conversation – Valentine telling Moniak’s father how happy he was with his son’s success.
“I almost had tears in my eyes – I’m like, ‘It’s been a long hill, Bobby,'” Mike said. “He’s like, ‘I know.’ ”
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The numbers were never really there for six years in Philadelphia, through mechanical tweaks Moniak felt “didn’t work” with his ability to cover ground off speed. After finally making the opening day roster last season, he broke his hand.
“His demeanor never changed,” Machado said, noting that Moniak returns to Encinitas during the offseason to train several times a week. “He was always rock solid. He knew it was going to happen for him eventually – just being [the first pick]they expected NOW. And he understood that it didn’t have to be that.
A change of scenery, Moniak felt, made sense for both parties. Working with Angels hitting coaches Phil Plantier and Marcus Thames in the offseason helped him load better into his left hip at home plate, opening up his stance for better fastball coverage and adjustment to off-speed pitches.
But the walking count is almost ridiculously bad — five walks to 56 strikeouts after Sunday’s 7-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The reason is complex: Moniak does not like to walk. Never, dating from high school. He’s going to chase pitches, he admits, because he’s confident he can hit.
Does manager Phil Nevin want him to walk more? Of course. But what isn’t broken doesn’t need to be fixed.
“He’s always going to chase balls, and that’s fine with me,” Nevin said. “He’s so aggressive when he gets up there – I don’t want to change that, because he has such good hand-eye coordination… that’s what all his data and stats are showing right now.”
Life has its ups and downs, but the most upset Machado has ever seen Moniak was when he beat him in a round of golf.
The truth, from Moniak, his father, Machado and others: Kid just hasn’t changed much since he was 17.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.