All 30 teams left Guatemala impressed: Moncada had explosive speed on the bases and the muscular build of an NFL linebacker. Some scouts compared him to Mike Trout. Others said they were reminded of Robinson Cano. He had the versatility to play anywhere in the infield, and he could hit for raw power from both sides of the plate. Best of all, unlike some Cuban players who didn't defect until their late 20s, Moncada had his entire prime ahead of him.

It had all the makings of an obvious bidding war in the open market of foreign free agency, and in the end it came down to the Yankees, Dodgers, Padres and Red Sox. Moncada came to the U.S. at the end of 2014 and moved in with Josefa and David. David, a CPA who'd never worked in baseball, became his agent and represented him in negotiations. The previous record signing bonus for an international amateur was $8.27 million. By late February, the Red Sox had increased their offer for Moncada to $31.5 million, and they had to pay another $31.5 million to the league for exceeding its spending limit for foreign signings.

"I feel totally exhausted," David said, standing in the family's St. Pete kitchen, once the deal was finally signed.

"I feel so rich!" Moncada responded.

It took him awhile to understand just how much money he had already earned. David explained that Moncada had just made the equivalent of 656,250 years of work, based on his $4 monthly salary playing for Cienfuegos. Still, when Moncada got his first check, the total was much less than what he'd been expecting, and he came to David in a rage, convinced he'd been robbed. "He didn't really know about the concept of taxes," David says. "I had to print out a pay stub and show him why it was 35 percent less than he thought."

Even at 65 percent, Moncada had money to spend on drones, video games, toys and clothes. He sometimes spent $1,500 or more during nights out, David says. After he purchased the second $200,000 car, Josefa tried to talk some sense into him. "You are being an idiot, just wasting all this money," she told him. "What are you even thinking?"

"Go big or go home," he told her with a smile.

"They are like my American parents," Moncada says of Josefa and David, and to them it sometimes felt as if they were raising a moody teenager. They called Moncada "the kid," and often he could be sweet and endearing, staying up late to video-chat with his family in Cuba. But he could also be stubborn and frustrating. David let him drive his 10-year-old Toyota Sienna, and Moncada sped away so fast he "practically got that car up on two wheels," David says. Moncada discovered Twinkies at Wal-Mart and started consuming them by the box, sometimes eating more than 10 in a single sitting even as the Red Sox were trying to counsel him on diet and nutrition. When David took Moncada to the dentist in the winter of 2015 -- the first dental visit of Moncada's life -- he had about 15 cavities, David says.

And then there were the mornings when Moncada simply wouldn't wake up, which drove Josefa crazy. As a former flight attendant, she had been taught that being late meant losing her job. "You aren't worth $31 million to anybody just staying all day in bed," she would tell Moncada, and sometimes she would beat him with a pillow to get him out of bed for practice.

But once Moncada finally got to the ballpark, his coaches and teammates gushed about his willingness to work in the batting cage and field extra grounders. "The only place I'm comfortable is on the field, so I'm always going to stay as long as I can," he says. His progress was evident: He stole 94 bases in his first 187 minor league games and flashed enough power to rise quickly through Boston's system.

From extended spring training, to Class-A, to Class-A Advanced, to Double-A, every move brought another seismic cultural transition. He asked the Red Sox to sign Mesa to a $200,000 contract, and Mesa traveled and played with Moncada in the minor leagues. The two friends ate at Chipotle almost every day because Moncada had mastered the menu and he could reliably order in Spanish.

Whenever he moved to a new city, the Hastingses would go there first to find him an apartment, take care of any paperwork and deliver his cars. Then they would go back home to Florida and hope. "It's always just kind of, 'OK, good luck, fingers crossed,'" David says.

What David usually worried about most was Moncada's money: "I look at his bank account each morning to see if he's making big mistakes or little mistakes," David says.

What Josefa worried about most was his reputation: "If I was in his position, there would be no girls, no clubs, no cars," she says. "I would be either on the field or locked in my room. But that takes wisdom, and unfortunately that's something all of his money can't buy."

Between each of his frequent moves, Moncada would usually come back to Florida to see Josefa and David. He purchased a house on their street and spent afternoons sitting at Josefa's restaurant, where a gigantic map of the world hung on the wall. Sometimes, Moncada and Josefa would stand together under the map and she would point to where he was going next. "Hot or cold?" he would always ask, and then once in a while he would put his finger on the map and trace the distance between his new destination and Cuba.

Then, in December Josefa was suddenly pointing him to Chicago, and at first Moncada was devastated. He had barely made it to the major leagues in Boston, playing during a handful of games with the Red Sox last September, but he had imagined spending his career there. In 25 years, no team had ever traded away the No. 1 prospect in baseball, and now Moncada and a few others had been swapped for Sale, an ace entering his prime. "It's fair to say that Yoan took it as a very personal rejection," David says.

But that first night after the trade, Moncada received a text message from one of his new teammates, All-Star first baseman Jose Abreu. The two men had once played together in the infield for Cienfuegos when Moncada was 17, and now over text messages Abreu told Moncada about the White Sox's deep Cuban tradition, having featured nearly 20 Cuban-born players, including Minnie Minoso, Orlando Hernandez, Jose Contreras and Alexei Ramirez. "This team gets it," Abreu texted that night.

Abreu believed Moncada was a future All-Star. Moncada, meanwhile, saw in Abreu a "mentor and friend whose example I can only hope to follow." Abreu had transitioned to life in the U.S. more quickly than almost any other Cuban player, defecting to Haiti by boat in 2013 and earning a spot in the MLB All-Star Game less than a year later. Like Moncada, he had been made instantly rich, with a $68 million contract that was the largest in White Sox history. Like Moncada, he had also spent some of that initial money buying luxury cars from Vega. "He's helping me navigate the game but most of all the culture," says Moncada, whose locker was side-by-side with Abreu's at spring training. "He's a few years ahead of me in that. I try to follow whatever he does."

Moncada will start this season in Triple-A Charlotte, with the potential to come up as early as April or May (though almost certainly not before a mid-April series against the Twins, allowing the White Sox to save a year of Moncada's service time). Throughout spring training, he showed off his power but also struck out in 14 of his first 41 at-bats and made a few routine errors at second base. And so he spent extra time with Abreu in the batting cages and worked to widen his fielding stance. In his final seven games in Arizona, he went 10-for-22 with four doubles, three home runs and 11 RBIs.

One night this spring, after most of the team had already left the facility, Moncada finished in the cage and walked alone to the team's parking lot, where one of Vega's cars was waiting. It was the BMW X6, with forged wheels and red-and-white trim. On the front of the hood was Moncada's personalized logo, an artful combination of his initials, which he had also recently inked onto his neck.

He had a body built for baseball and a car built for speed, and in both places his tattooed initials looked clean and natural. He started the car's ignition and zipped out of the parking lot, logo leading the way, even if it wasn't yet clear exactly what that logo would come to represent.