Yoan Moncada's high strikeout total has an awful lot of folks in a tizzy.
There are plenty of reasons why no one should freak out over this quite yet: It's still very early in the season (and Moncada's career), it's part of Moncada's still-ongoing development and it's not exactly keeping the White Sox from an imminent pennant race.
But here's one that might make some people relax: The start of Moncada's career has gone a lot better than the start of Paul Konerko's.
Konerko went on to become one of the greatest White Sox hitters ever, but he didn't start out that way. Before he finished with 439 career home runs, made six All-Star appearances and helped the White Sox win the 2005 World Series, things didn't go so hot right out of the gate.
When you compare the first 308 major league plate appearances of Konerko and Moncada, Moncada has the edge in batting average, homers, walks, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Konerko didn't strike out as much, but Moncada's off to a better start in many other categories.
Here are those numbers, courtesy of our own Chris Kamka:
MLB
While the White Sox fan base has been generally great about embracing the rebuild and exercising patience with the organization's fleet of talented prospects, some eager rebuild-lovers are itching to see Moncada, who was the No. 1 prospect in baseball last season, have success at the big league level. (By the way, Konerko was a highly rated prospect, too, landing on Baseball America's top-100 prospects list in four different years.) Moncada's still developing, but if his "poor" start turns into the kind of career that Konerko's did, that ought to make White Sox fans very happy.
Until then, some patience and relaxation might be in order — and perhaps this comparison can help.