The night before his first varsity start as a freshman at La Costa Canyon, Colorado Rockies outfielder Mickey Moniak cut his hand while trying to scrape dried dirt off his cleats with a knife.
Days earlier, Moniak, a future No. 1 overall Major League Baseball draft pick, had earned his spot in the lineup by singling off Cathedral Catholic’s 6-foot-5 senior ace and future big leaguer, Steven Gonsalves, in his first high school at-bat.
“He showed up before the game and goes, ‘I can’t play,’” longtime LCC head coach Justin Machado recalled. “He had numerous stitches. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Griffin Teisher, who grew up playing youth ball with Moniak in Encinitas and later shared the outfield with him at La Costa Canyon, still remembers the injury.
“It was on his palm — like a crater,” said Teisher, coach of the Mission Hills varsity baseball team. “I remember he had this brush and was scrubbing lotion and stuff onto it, trying to clean it out. And I think Machado basically said, ‘You’re crazy. You’re playing.’”
That was the start of a four-year stretch at La Costa, where Moniak was nearly impossible to get out at the plate. The Encinitas native quickly became a varsity standout, hitting over .460 as a sophomore and nearly .480 as a senior. Over his high school career, Moniak racked up more than 150 hits, scored over 100 runs, and drove in more than 100 RBIs, adding nine home runs.
“We started playing together when we were eight, on the Encinitas Reds and then the Del Mar Rip Tides,” Teisher said. “Even back then, he had the smoothest left-handed swing I’d ever seen. He wasn’t physically huge or especially athletic at that age, but the mechanics were there. In eighth grade, playing against 16- and 17-year-olds, he held his own better than most 13-year-olds. That’s when you could really see he was something special.”
The Mavericks won back-to-back Avocado West League championships and played in two CIF Open Division finals during Moniak’s sophomore and junior years (2014 and 2015).
“Nick Scheidler [LCC 2016] and I still joke about how everything Moniak hit as a senior was barreled perfectly,” Teisher said. “Maybe four times all season he didn’t hit the ball squarely on the barrel.”
By his senior year, scouting directors, general managers, agents, and cameras showed up at nearly every practice and game.
“All he wanted was for the Mavericks to win baseball games,” Machado said. “With a kid like that — 17 or 18, getting so much attention every single day — for him not to care and just focus on winning was off the charts. It became kind of an ongoing joke with the players: ‘Oh, how many scouts are going to show up today?’”
“The major league attention was crazy, but he really pushed our whole group,” Teisher added. “Pressure didn’t get to him when scouts were there. He’d rise to the occasion — going five for five, stealing bases, making a diving play in the outfield. I’ve never seen anyone else with that level of clutch as a player.”
With the Phillies’ top brass attending most of his high school games, it quickly became clear that Moniak was a top prospect. On June 9, Moniak was taken No. 1 overall in the 2016 MLB Draft.
After time with the Gulf Coast League Phillies and Lakewood Blue Claws, Moniak made his major league debut in 2020 but struggled over parts of three seasons with Philadelphia, hitting just .129 in 105 plate appearances. On the corners of the internet where baseball discourse thrives, Moniak was labeled a B-U-S-T — joining the same conversation as JaMarcus Russell, Tony Mandarich, and Greg Oden.
He then spent two steady but unspectacular years with the Los Angeles Angels, showing glimpses of the talent that made him the top pick in 2016.
After signing a one-year deal with the Rockies, Moniak is enjoying a renaissance season, hitting 24 home runs and posting a .272 batting average for an abysmal 42-win team. In July, FanSided ran an article titled: “Phillies bust is somehow becoming the best hidden gem of the MLB trade deadline.”
Phillip Evans, who followed a similar path from La Costa Canyon to the big leagues, sees the silver lining in Moniak’s early struggles.
“I can’t believe they even did that to him,” Evans said. “He was still so young, and his body hadn’t really filled out yet — a lot of guys are late bloomers physically. He was 18, the No. 1 pick, and everyone was finding ways to bash him. I think the best thing for him was having Bryce Harper around, because he was a former No. 1 and could help him navigate that pressure.
“I wasn’t really worried about him. Being the first overall pick, you’re going to get your chance. Even after struggling in Philadelphia, I knew someone would pick him up, and with less pressure, it can almost fire you up. When everyone starts forgetting about you, it takes the pressure off and lets you go out there and play.”
Evans said he reached out to Moniak early in his professional career.
“I shared some of the knowledge I wish I’d had when I was his age. We became close early in his career, working out and hitting together. I’d give him advice about routines, focusing on your game, and buckling down — stuff I wish I’d done at 18 or 19.”
On a recent stretch, Moniak hit home runs in four consecutive games, putting an exclamation point on the season with a return to San Diego on Sept. 14, when he recorded four hits, two home runs, five RBIs, and two stolen bases in the Rockies’ 9-6 loss.
“I’ve seen the ball well and was able to jump on two good pitches and put good swings on them,” said the 27-year-old Moniak. “It doesn’t mean much if you lose.”
Teisher was in attendance at Petco for the offensive onslaught.
“After his first home run, I was yelling, ‘Good job!’ The second one, I was like, ‘Mickey, cool it — I’m still rooting for the Padres!’ Then he hit an RBI single and had five RBIs in a close game, and I was like, ‘All right, Mickey, stop scoring!’ I was giving him a hard time and yelling at him.”
Moniak will enter salary arbitration with the Rockies this offseason. Interim manager Warren Schaeffer has expressed interest in a reunion for 2026.
