SOUTH JORDAN — As Salt Lake Bees infielder Christian Moore described his four-hit performance Thursday night, infielder Carter Kieboom climbed up the first base dugout and playfully hurdled a cup of water toward his newest teammate.
This has been a bit of a theme for Moore in his first week in Triple-A, as his teammates doused him with a water cooler after his debut on Tuesday. But, in all reality, it’s Moore that’s made the biggest splash since his minor league promotion.
Moore fell a triple shy of the cycle on Thursday, while also clubbing his first Triple-A homer — the first to hit a green batter’s eye 420 feet to dead center inside The Ballpark at America First Square since it opened in April. It was part of the eight hits he collected in his first 13 at-bats with the Bees.
“I’m not really worried about the numbers, not really worried about any of that stuff,” he told KSL.com, sitting on a bench in the team’s dugout before Friday’s game. “I’m just trying to be consistent and help these guys win. That’s why they called me up here to do.”
Moore’s journey to Salt Lake has been quick, but a long time coming.
A New York City native and the son of a big Mets fan, he went to big league games in Queens — but also at Yankees Stadium with his family.
He participated in the youth baseball league Perfect Game every summer in middle and high school. And as he began excelling on the field as a two-way player, he also started garnering attention from top college programs.
Tennessee offered him a scholarship while he was a freshman in high school, and he didn’t look back. That decision paid off as Moore played an integral part in the Volunteers’ national title run last year, catching the attention of MLB scouts along the way. The Angels selected the second baseman with the eighth overall pick in the 2024 MLB draft.
In some ways, Moore didn’t think he’d be in Triple-A by now, but he quickly climbed through the team’s minor league system — and he’s off to a fast start in the final step before the big leagues. It’s helped him suddenly become Los Angeles’ top prospect and 60th overall in baseball.
“Obviously, you dream about moving up fast and being in MLB as fast as you can, but at the same time, you know it’s going to take a while and you’ve got to put in the work and play well,” he said. “I thought about it, but not to the point where I was upset if I wasn’t going to be here.”
To an extent, Bees fans probably didn’t expect to see Moore in a Bees uniform, either.
Most of the Angels’ top prospects have leaped from Double-A to the majors in recent years, bypassing Salt Lake altogether. That was the case for Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel, the Angels’ top picks in the 2022 and 2023 drafts, respectively, as well as Ben Joyce, another top prospect taken in 2022.
Caden Dana, the Angels’ top pitching prospect now, made his MLB debut last year after time in Double-A. He pitched in Salt Lake this season, though, up until his return to the big leagues this weekend.
Bees manager Keith Johnson isn’t aware if there was a reason top prospects skipped Salt Lake over the past few seasons, but he’s glad to have Moore around now. Johnson liked what he saw from the young infielder while watching him in an instructional league and in spring training, but Thursday’s four-hit performance proved why the Angels think highly of the infielder.
“He’s a prospect for a reason,” Johnson said. “(Thursday) night was a little peek into who he could be. The biggest thing for him is to find the consistency, get some reps … and take advantage.”
In trying to be consistent, Moore said he’s looking to find how he can be a factor in all elements of the game. Base running and defense are other elements of the game that he wants to refine. And while he followed Thursday’s game by going 0-for-3 on Friday, he still found a way to get on base twice, scoring two runs in an 11-10 win.
“I want to be an all-around player, and I want to have all the tools — and provide something every day if I don’t get a hit or a home run,” he said.
That’s why he spent his first spring training learning as much as he could from the organization’s top stars like Mike Trout, Taylor Ward and Logan O’Hoppe. Johnson said he’s been an “open book” during his first week in Triple-A, soaking in as much information as possible without letting it overwhelm him on the field.
Moore added that he’s not worried about a big league call-up yet, saying he has to take care of what he can, and the rest will sort itself out.
In the meantime, he plans to enjoy his time in Utah, where he’s already found admiration for the mountains beyond The Ballpark seats. They’re something that immediately caught his attention during his first flight in.
“Hopefully, I’ll get to hike one, one of these days,” he said, staring out toward them.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
