Mike Moustakas: Elite Thirdbase Option For 2016?

Mike Moustakas was one of, if not the only, player in baseball to rebound from a rough 2014 season and go on to have a career season in 2015. It is nearly impossible to do but, Moustakas did just that and basically erased all doubt from fantasy owners and fans alike who wrote him off.

Moustakas has always been surrounded by hype since he was the second overall pick in the 2007 draft. He was billed as one of the foundation pieces for the Royals turnaround and would man their hot corner for years to come.

Mike Moustakas killed it in the minors at nearly every stop, and he made his MLB debut in 2011. He never really took off though across his first four seasons and doubt crept in that Moustakas was never going to live up to the hype at all.

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Prior to 2015, Moustakas’ best season was in 2012 when he posted a, .240/20 HR/73 RBI, line. While the power and run production were nice for his first full season, there was still more upside that the baseball community felt was there.

However, after that season his stats and performance would precipitously fall over the next three seasons and he even had to be sent down in 2014 in order for him to try to figure out a new approach at the plate.

He finished 2014 with a, .212/15 HR/54 RBI/.632 OPS, line that had him well off fantasy radars heading into the 2015 draft. Out of all his struggles there seemed to be one thing that was killing him the most: the shift.

Throughout his whole career Mike Moustakas was an extreme pull hitter and he was able to get away with it in the minors because the defensive shifts that we see every night were not being as widely implemented. He happened to enter the league at a bad time, as the shift became one of the biggest neutralizers in the history of baseball and we see every year how it has decimated hitters’ stats.

The Royals and Moustakas knew that he had to change something so the decision was made that Moustakas would need to start making it a point to go the other way and do whatever it took to get a ball through the gaping hole on the left side of the infield.

This change started his 2014 minor league stint, and I wish I had taken more notice of him in the spring because he was clearly showing his new approach at the plate then as well. As 2015 would unfold, Moustakas would go on to abuse the shift and become a solid all-around hitter and fantasy surprise.

Mike Moustakas ended the 2015 season with a, .284/22 HR/82 RBI/.817 OPS, line which are all career highs. Moustakas was one of the best waiver wire adds this season and heading into 2016 it will be curious to see how high he is valued.

Clearly now that the league knows that Moustakas is going the other way, the shift will adjusted to the point where a guy will be on the left side and defend the spot where most of his balls that way go. This serves as a masked benefit in a way, because on one hand the league will adjust to his new approach but there is still a ton of open area on that side of the field and it opens the right side up some as well.

Third base is a pretty deep position and owners may have a hard time trusting Moustakas as their number one option there. In my early rankings have him easily in the top 12 and he will definitely be a starting 3B on most teams. The next step for Moustakas will be to repeat his production and actually improve on his career stats.

For me Mike Moustakas seems to be on the verge of entering his prime, so with his new plate approach and his promising peripheral stats, I could foresee him flirt with top five status. Moustakas falls into that lower end of the elite options, there are clearly higher upside options at 3B, but I would fully recommend owners to finally welcome him into elite status regardless.

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