A challenging season was a growth opportunity for MLB Draft prospect Malcolm Moore

Editor’s Note: After this story was published,  Malcolm Moore was selected No. 30 overall in the 2024 MLB Draft by the Texas Rangers.

STANFORD, Calif. — When Malcolm Moore arrived on the Stanford campus last year, the highly recruited catcher from Sacramento was everything that his teammates and coaches expected.

He won Pac-12 Conference Freshman of the Year honors. He started all 64 games, including 55 behind the plate, which was no small assignment for a freshman on a talented and seasoned roster. He meshed perfectly with that group while helping the Cardinal to a conference championship and a trip to the College World Series. He batted .311 and so many of his 15 home runs came in the clutch.

Moore parlayed his freshman season into a spot on the USA Collegiate National Team. He was on almost every Player of the Year watch list, including the Golden Spikes Award honoring the nation’s top amateur player and the Buster Posey Award honoring the top collegiate catcher.

He did not have the banner sophomore season that many expected. It was an even rougher transition year for the program after losing nine players to the MLB Draft, including top hitters Alberto Rios and Tommy Troy, as well as the stinging departure of two-way star Braden Montgomery to Texas A&M in the transfer portal. The team finished 22-33 including an 11-19 conference record. In the final 10 regular season games that Stanford played as a member of the Pac-12 Conference, the Cardinal lost them all.

But according to some who endured the difficult season at the Sunken Diamond, the challenging year also revealed some of Moore’s most undervalued attributes.

“Same energy, the same attitude every day,” said Stanford junior catcher Charlie Saum. “On the field, his talent speaks for itself. The bat’s impressive. But what’s off the field is just as important, especially for catchers. A lot of the guys looked up to him as a leader. He was a sparkplug. We were able to maintain team morale and he was a huge part of that.”

Malcolm Moore goes yard for the second time this inning 🤯@StanfordBSB lead 8-0! pic.twitter.com/uXUMMlXQrw

— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) May 21, 2024

Stanford assistant coach Thomas Eager, who recruited Moore out of McClatchy High in Sacramento and coached him with Team USA, knew that the Cardinal would lean heavily on its left-handed hitting sophomore.

“I don’t think anyone knew how we’d handle the season with such a young team,” Eager said. “But if you asked Malcolm, he’s thinking we’re going to Omaha again. He’s one of the most even-keeled kids I’ve coached in a long time. He does a good job staying balanced and true to himself. There’s no ulterior motives. He is who he is. Raised the right way by mom and dad. He kept showing up, kept staying positive.

“And he cares. That’s when you saw the emotion.”

One moment stood out from Moore’s sophomore season: an April 14 game at Corvallis, Ore., in which Stanford was a handful of outs away from scoring a Sunday win from a 29-4 Oregon State team. Pitcher Ben Reimers didn’t get the call on a close, two-strike pitch in the eighth inning before serving up a tying home run. Moore reacted by sticking up for his pitcher. He said enough to get ejected by the plate umpire.

The Cardinal came back to win. By rule, Moore sat out the next game against Sacramento State. And in the game after that, Moore cranked three home runs in a victory over Oregon.

“It wasn’t my intention to get thrown out,” Moore said. “I was just trying to make our pitcher feel better. He didn’t do anything wrong. I thought he was doing a great job and I was trying to be there for him.”

“Nobody wanted to have a season below .500 but in some ways it was good for me as a development piece, to be honest,” Moore continued. “You learn from failure and I think everybody on that team will be better for it.”

Moore was one of the top-ranked California high school hitters in the 2022 draft class. He drew scouting comparisons to Tyler Soderstrom, another prep catcher who was a 2020 first-round pick of the Oakland A’s. But Moore’s early commitment to Stanford was so durable that he went undrafted. He’s a self-taught hitter with a distinctive stance and a swing that employs a number of timing mechanisms. He keeps his hands low in his setup and his swing explodes from a short load.

“I’ve always hit by myself,” Moore said. “I just developed my swing in the backyard, going to the cage by myself, and trying to hit the ball harder than my brother, who’s three years older than me. That’s how I fell in love with the game.”

M1 » 🌲 1, 🦉 0

Played to pull and he goes OPPO TACO 🌮

Second of the season for @Malcolm7Moore!

📺 » @ESPNPlus
💻 » https://t.co/qkTfZz1M9E#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/Rl5KTpvHxM

— Stanford Baseball (@StanfordBSB) March 2, 2024

This season, Moore hit .255 with 16 home runs as a sophomore, but the underlying metrics and expected statistics painted a rosier picture. His walk and strikeout rates improved (he drew 44 walks vs. 35 strikeouts) and so did his barrel rate on pitches in the strike zone.

“On the surface (the season) wasn’t what you want but I got better in a lot of areas that I wanted to focus on: striking out less, walking more, getting on base,” Moore said. “The numbers are what they are. But the biggest thing was how much I earned to control the strike zone and become a better hitter. I didn’t have the names around me like I did last year, so learning how to hit in a different lineup was important.”

Most mock drafts predict that Moore will go anywhere between the 25th and 35th pick. In his latest mock draft, The Athletic’s Keith Law projects Moore to go at pick 14 to the Chicago Cubs. A team that takes him will be investing in the left-handed bat and open to the possibility that he could develop as a first baseman if he doesn’t stay behind the plate.

But Moore’s love of catching is the reason he didn’t turn pro out of high school. He wanted to go to Stanford and have the chance to develop behind the plate. He’s loved the action and involvement of catching since he was an 11-year-old and volunteered to put on the chest protector to replace a teammate who went on a family vacation.

“It’s something a lot of people doubted I could do when I came to school,” Moore said. “It’s something I’m really proud of: to be able to control the game, make connections with the pitching staff and allow them to trust me. There’s a lot that goes into the position that doesn’t get looked at as much.”

Eager recalled an early conversation he had with Moore shortly after he enrolled.

“It was the first or second bullpen he caught,” Eager said. “I asked him, ‘Why did you turn down all that money to go to Stanford?’ He said, ‘None of the scouts think I can catch, they want me to go to first base, they’re haters and I’m going to prove them wrong.’ I thought, ‘Well, OK, then.’

“When I recruited him, I saw this gangly kid catching, making the most manic throws to second base, facemask flying. He’d just stand up and throw the crap out of it. No technique. But he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t trying to perform or put on a show or a lesson. He just did things his way and wanted to throw everybody out.

“When he got here, he took it personal. He wanted to catch every inning. He’d go in the cages late at night and work on his setup and receiving. He wanted to catch every bullpen, literally. I’ve never had a catcher in all my years who’d get mad if he didn’t catch every bullpen. He has a true passion for catching. I really don’t know how he’d do in the outfield. He’s a guy who needs to be involved and engaged in the game.”

Moore, who turns 21 on July 31, will be among the youngest players in the draft pool. He meets the age cutoff to be a draft-eligible sophomore by one day. That’ll give him a little leverage with teams — the Cubs have been linked to him and the Giants have scouted him extensively going back to high school — if he slips out of the top-50 picks or doesn’t get the bonus he is seeking. But the expectation on campus is that Moore’s next assignment will be in pro ball.

If that’s the case, then Moore was able to make one more positive memory before his time at Stanford ended. When the Cardinal upset Arizona State to begin the Pac-12 Tournament and end their 10-game losing streak, Moore leaped out of his crouch and tackled pitcher Toran O’Harran after the final out. Stanford did not make a miraculous run from the bottom of the bracket. Their season lasted just two more games. But pride can be a powerful motivator.

“I care a lot about our team and our guys,” said Moore, who homered twice in the game and caught the final out in foul territory. “We ended the 10-game losing streak. We’d been swept by that team in the regular season. I knew it was a big challenge but that our guys could do it. So yeah, I guess I was very animated about that win. Everything kind of came out.”

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(Photo: Dylan Widger / USA Today)