The curious case of Adalberto Mondesi
Gifted or cursed?
A couple of weeks ago I caught a social media post about the former Royal Adalberto Mondesi, a guy who I’d forgotten about. Out of sight, out of mind.
The post itself just rehashed most of the thoughts and feelings we had towards Mondesi while he was a member of the Royals – the inconsistency, the injuries, the seemingly perpetual disappointment of unrealized talent. What really caught my attention was the comment section. I was surprised that people were still so bitterly polarized over Mondesi.
I’ve never met Mondesi. He always seemed like a good kid, and when you’re my age, the now 28 Mondesi is still a kid.
The son of Raul Mondesi, who had an interesting 13-year career in which he collected almost 1,600 hits and put up 29 WAR, the Royals signed the younger Mondesi in July of 2011 as a free agent on his 16th birthday for a nifty $2 million. Maybe because of his parental lineage, expectations were always high for Adalberto, who in those days went by his birth name, Raul Jr.
The Royals assigned him to their rookie league team in Idaho Falls where he hit .290 as a 16-year-old in 50 games. That in itself is impressive, but I’m not sure it was the proper thing to do. After all, at 16, most of us are sophomores or juniors in high school, and if you were like me at that age, you have absolutely no clue. About anything. Yet here was Mondesi, playing with 18- to 20-year-olds and doing well.
For his age 17 season, the Royals bumped him to their Low A ball team in Lexington, Kentucky, where over 125 games he hit a still respectable .261.
In 2014, during his age 18 season, he advanced to Wilmington of High A. Wilmington always seemed to be Heartbreak Hill for the Royals prospects. I’m not sure why that was, but most seasons in Wilmington, on paper anyway, look like a disaster. In 110 games, Mondesi slashed .212/.257/.354 with 122 strikeouts in just 110 games.
Undaunted, the Royals continued to hype Mondesi as their top prospect despite his production screaming otherwise and promoted him to AA Northwest Arkansas for the 2015 season. In 81 games, he hit .243 with 88 strikeouts in 81 games. Then for some crazy reason, Dayton Moore and the Royals brain trust decided to have Mondesi make his major league debut in the 2015 World Series, something that hadn’t been done since 1885.
Talk about pressure, having to make your debut on the biggest stage. Not a particularly smart move by the Royals.
In Game Three, he came up as a pinch hitter against Noah “Thor” Syndergaard, who at the time was one of the hardest throwers in baseball. Syndergaard didn’t waste much time in striking out Mondesi.
Mondesi started the 2016 season in NW Arkansas, but after 29 games, in which he hit .259, he was suspended for 80 games (later reduced to 50) after testing positive for clenbuterol, which is often used to treat breathing disorders like asthma. Clenbuterol has been bandied about in the bodybuilding community as a muscle-building agent, which has never been proven true.
The focus of this essay isn’t to pass judgment if Mondesi was using a PED. In my amateur opinion, Clenbuterol is not a performance enhancer and nothing in Mondesi’s production leads me to believe it was enhanced. I could be wrong. Mondesi’s numbers do not look like a guy who was using PEDs.
Mondesi was called to Kansas City after his suspension and appeared in 47 games for the Royals. After a decent start, he quickly cratered and ended with a slash of .185/.231/.281 with 48 strikeouts. He was so badly overmatched at the plate that he resorted to trying to bunt his way on most games. It was quite an ugly spectacle to watch and I’m sure it was damaging to his confidence.
He started the 2017 season in Kansas City but after hitting just .103 in his first 14 games, the Royals finally did the smart thing and sent him to Omaha. In 85 games at Omaha, he hit .305 but was still averaging a strikeout a game with 86.
Mondesi started the 2018 season in Omaha, but with the Royals contention window rapidly closing and Dayton Moore desperate to find another star player, Mondesi was recalled to the big leagues. Mondesi enjoyed his best stretch as a player that summer, slashing .276/.306/.498 with 14 home runs and 32 stolen bases. At this point, Royals fans, including myself, thought that he was getting it figured out and would be a mainstay for the next 5 to 7 years.
In 2019 he appeared in 102 games, hit a respectable .263, played some good defense and even stole 43 bases. He was still striking out a lot, 132 whiffs, but he was still just 23.
Then the pandemic season happened. Mondesi looked incredibly uncomfortable when play resumed. He was often the only player on either team to wear a mask while playing. I’m not making a political statement on this. I’ve had COVID twice myself, once in November of 2019, before the vaccine was available and that was the most miserable three weeks of my life. The other occurrence was in May of 2023, after having been vaxxed and boosted twice. I’ve personally known at least six people who died from the virus, but all had specific issues that made them vulnerable.
Mondesi was an extremely healthy 24-year-old high performance athlete. His risk profile was very low. Despite that, he often looked, and played, like he’d rather be anywhere else but the ballpark. And it showed in his performance. In his first 37 games he slashed a miserable .179/.209/.231.
I questioned his mental toughness and his dedication to the game. Then something happened. Over the final 22 games of the season, he suddenly caught fire and finished the year on a 32 for 85 heater (.377). Twelve of those hits went for extra bases. He drove in 19 and stole 16 bases. His final 11 games of the season were a tour de force: 20-for-42, good for a .476/.522/.833 line.
Short of George Brett, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Royal hitter who was that hot over a period of games. I made it a point to watch every time he came to the plate and marveled at what I was seeing. Once again, I thought maybe, just maybe, the light finally came on.
Unfortunately, it was a blip. He lost most of 2021 to oblique and hamstring injuries. He played in just 15 games in 2022 before blowing out his left knee while stepping back to first base on a pickoff attempt. For a young man in the prime of his physical life, he appeared to be made of glass.
The Royals finally gave up on Mondesi and traded him to the Red Sox in January of 2023. He tore his left ACL in March of ‘23 and missed the entire season. He’s currently a free agent.
Will Mondesi ever make it back to the major leagues? It’s certainly possible. If he can get healthy, he has the physical tools to do it. It’s been done before. Josh Hamilton was a top prospect who derailed his career with drug addiction before finally achieving stardom with the Texas Rangers. Hamilton was out of baseball for almost three years before finally getting it together. He was a phenomenal talent and when he was right, was one of the most exciting players in the game.
Can Mondesi do that? I have absolutely no idea. Does he miss the game? Does he even love to play the game? Being a professional athlete is tough and the competition is relentless. Does Mondesi have the mental toughness to succeed? I have my doubts.
Did he play because he loved the game or because he felt like he had to play, being the son of a major leaguer?
I think one of the worst things about the money that athletes make, not just in baseball but football and basketball as well, is a lot of guys will hang around just to get the paycheck. They don’t necessarily love the sport, but they love the lifestyle and the money. You can pick these guys out. They have seemingly unlimited physical gifts but never seem to maximize those gifts. They bounce from team to team, leaving a trail of disappointed fans and front office types who were seduced by those physical gifts.
In my opinion, the Royals made just about every mistake they could have made with Mondesi. They overhyped him even though the production didn’t warrant the hype. They promoted him up when he clearly wasn’t ready. Was he coachable? Was he a hard worker? Does he love playing the game? I wish I had the answers to those questions.
I hope Mondesi can make a comeback. Some team will certainly take a chance on him, eventually, assuming he wants to play again.