The Angels will promote top prospect Jo Adell, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). The club is off tonight, so he’ll have his first shot at playing in the majors tomorrow evening.
Adell entered each of the past two seasons as a consensus top-ten prospect leaguewide. Selected out of high school in the first round of the 2017 draft, he has certainly hit his ceiling as a prospect. Now we’ll see whether he can do so as a major leaguer.
Given the timing of the promotion, Adell will not be able to accrue a full season of MLB service this year. He’s now on track to reach free agency after the 2026 season. If he holds down a roster spot from this point forward, Adell will surely qualify for arbitration in advance of the 2023 season as a Super Two player.
The 21-year-old Adell has generally thrived on his way up the ladder. He didn’t impress at Triple-A last year after a late-season promotion, but he showed well in the Arizona Fall League and doesn’t really have anything left to prove. All told, Adell owns a .298/.361/.518 batting line in the minors.
Most prospect watchers expect Adell to grow into added power. He’s already driving the ball all over the field and has the wheels to take extra bases. That speed also serves Adell well in the outfield, where he also possesses a big arm.
There’s really not much not to like. Adell does have some swing and miss but not so much that it’s considered a likely hindrance. As with any prospect, there’s a wide variance of potential outcomes. But Halos fans have every reason to be excited to welcome another premium talent to the roster.
When Taylor Ward and Matt Theiss and Hemosilla are getting ABs… I say… FINALLY.
The halos really needed some good news after Ohtani’s struggles and the slow start. I don’t know if he’ll be enough to get them into the playoffs but he will make a nice addition to a solid core of position players.
Halo, since you are a fan of the team I expected you to get their names right but you misspelled 2 out of the 3. All in good fun. But after watching the past few games I was thinking the same thing.
It took me years to learn how to spell Sciosica. And I should spell Thaiss’s name correctly. He’s a serviceable major league player.
But the faster I forget Herman the better.
…to replace Mike Trout, who has opted out. CALLING IT.
Good call, considering Trout just announced he was rejoining the team in Seattle.
Hopefully Upton opted out.
I will not let your precious facts undermine my prognostications.
Baseballpun. At least you have a sense of humor.
You may be correct, or maybe not, but this made me laugh. Well done.
Nobody opted out. They sent Walsh & Hermosillo to Long Beach
More likely Shohei is headed to the DL
When it was found out that Ohtani was having TJ surgery, he hit two HRs that night. So I doubt it.
I’d be very happy with Ohtani being a DH and the Angels going back to a five man rotation.
who are those 5 pitchers,lol!
Vizionaire do you follow the Angels?
Heaney, Canning, Bundy, Teheran, Sandoval.
Then your comment is going to be “they suck”. And my comment will be “we’ll see”
they haven’t been great. and the manager that pulls them after a single hit in 6th surely doesn’t help.
I’m certainly not going to argue with anyone who thinks those guys are fodder. You could easily be right. But I will argue with someone who knows they are fodder.
And they have been pretty good, with their short leash, so far.
their average innings pitched are less than 5 innings excluding ohtani. struggling pen certainly doesn’t help.
Calling the bullpen “struggling” is being very polite. Atrocious, a dumpster fire, I can think of many other terms.
If you look at the pen, it’s not as bad as you think. It’s terrible because you don’t know who to rely on, but there have been a few pitchers who have been quite good. And the people who you expect to be good have been very terrible.
I can tell you about Bundy. Hes either on or hes practicing for the home run derby. His career era says it all. Hes gonna give you 5-6 innings of 4-5 run ball.
I doubt Bundy’s ERA says it all.
Don’t even say that bro! :/
Poor Brian Goodwin. Dude is mashing right now and they call up his replacement
Who loses playing time – Goodwin or Upton?
Hopefully Upton. Dude is straight up trash.
Upton will lose a little time. Goodwin will lose some time against lefties. Ward and Hermosillo will lose a lot of time. Theiss will lose a little time.
There is enough ABs for Adell. Not a full time job, but enough ABs to get him a taste of the major leagues. At the very least, he can pinch run.
Upton has a BABIP of .091 so far this year despite his medium/hard-hit% being up so he’s been extremely unlucky so far this year. Wouldn’t write him off yet
I’m not writing him off, but he doesn’t look good. Acuna doesn’t look good either. Even though the season is 1/6th over, it’s early… 🙂
Write him off yet? Uptpn’s whole career is over-hyped. He’s a slightly over mediocre .265 career hitter with below average defense. He should never have been put on the pedestal in the first place.
Do people still use batting average. How unenlightened
He’s 32 years old and has 300 career home runs.
Oh please. RBIs win games. BA and OBP are straight stats with zero subjectivity. His exit velocity is irrelevant if the ball ends up as an out.
What advanced stat are you using that says he’s as good as the hype?
RBIs win games? How about people who get on base and score runs win games. Nice Cliche.
Baseball is not played in a vacuum.
Upton’s lifetime OPS is pretty much the same for RISP, Men On and lifetime.
Halo11, I respect your opinion and agree with many of your posts, but in this case batting average can help discern a poor performer. I don’t believe anyone with a .200 batting average would be considered a strong performer because it would naturally affect every other statistic, wouldn’t it?
That said, I believe viewing aggregated stats is the most effective manner in which to judge.
We are talking about about a lifetime hitter of 265 not 200. It’s really hard to be good when you are hitting 200. Someone batting 200 tells me something. Someone who hits 265 doesn’t tell me much without more context.
Jim Fregosi’s lifetime batting average was 265, and he was great. Not good… Great. Not Hall of Fame great, but Great.
Wait, 11. Cliche as it may be, you have to get a hit to bat in a run in most instances. If Upton isn’t hitting, he’s not batting in anyone and he’s not getting batted in. Using OPS, which is objective, Upton has a career .820, which is just over the average tier depending on source, but nowhere near his hype or worth the money he’s paid. Add in lazy defense (subjectively my opinion) and you have a mediocre player in totality. He has been more of a liability than an asset since we’ve had him. In his first full Angels season in 2018, 613 PA with .808 OPS. 2019 (injured) 256 PA .724 OPS. 2020 to date and allegedly healthy, 41 PA .441 OPS. We can do better with Goodwin, Trout, and Adell across the outfield.
Fregosi’s lifetime OPS was .736.
Upton’s lifetime OPS+ is 124. Average Tier? He’s not worth the money, but not counting last year. His wCR+ for 2018 and 2019 ranked 23rd. A couple spots below Arrenado and a couple spots ahead of Rizzo and Springer.
Prior to his injury, Upton was very good. I don’t see how that’s remotely debatable.
“How about people who get on base and score runs win games. Nice Cliche.”
You score runs, mainly, by RBIs. You get on base and do not score, that’s called LOB – left on base. Watch Oakland in October. No bunting, no creativity, one dimensional. RBIs still matter. Anyone who says otherwise drinks the nerd koolaid.
Prov356. And he played in the sixties. Was a shortstop. From 1964 to 1970 was 10th in WAR and all but one above him are in the Hall of Fame.
And Bill James has him the greatest 20th century shortstop who is not in the Hall of Fame.
I think you need some help evaluating data.
OPS+ adds in subjectivity. Not as much as WAR, however.
Oh, and thanks for being condescending. That always makes for a respectful debate.
Is it harder to get on base or drive in runner in from third with less than two outs? Sorry, no.
I’d rather have Garret Anderson at the plate with a runner on 3rd and less than two outs. In virtually every other situation, I’d rather have Upton.
And as everyone should know by now, the most important offensive stat in baseball is OBP. Slugging is second.
If you want to do a quick evaluation of a player you should look at both.
OBP is only as important as the PA stat allows it to be.
Was Christian Colon the top bat in all the land last year? Or was he too important of a player to receive more than 8 plate appearances?
Getting on base doesn’t win games though. You can get on base as much as you want, but if no one drives you in you end up as a LOB and you won’t win the game. Every RBI equals a run, not every time on base does.
I’m not going to argue that RBIs are the best telltale stat in the world. Obviously they are mostly dependent on teammates, although you can get an RBI without a teammate being on base at all. It still has its use though, just like every other stat, including the saber stats.
What I find funny though is that RBIs have been shoved aside by the saber crowd because they are dependent on another player, while walks are praised by those same people. Walks are 100% dependent on another player. You have to have an opposing pitcher that misses the plate and the ability to do nothing while he pitches.
Except he wasn’t 10th in WAR from 1964 to 1970 because WAR didn’t exist. He was retroactively put on a leaderboard of a stat that takes into account a lot of things that were not tracked in those years. A lot of data, specifically defensive metrics were just guessed at regarding the past. Since defensive numbers play such a large part in WAR, especially for shortstops, those evaluations are really just a guess. An educated guess, but still just a guess.
WAR is a useful stat for modern baseball because everything is tracked and accounted for, but there are things in the past that just can’t be accounted for anymore.
Not making outs wins games and getting on base scores runs. Getting on base and being able to run scores more runs. Getting on base, and being able to run and slugging scores even more runs.
This isn’t rocket science.
I don’t push RBIs aside. But it’s not a quick stat. It needs further analysis. How and why did he get those RBIs.
Upton is a tragedy, not trash –
Not only does he have 2 yrs / 51 mill left after this year he’s blocking players in the system because he can only play a (bad) LF and the DH is clogged
The tragedy ofc is Mike Trout watching baseball at home in Oct
Damn hope Upton does, sheesh
he has had only 37 at-bats, though.
He also had 219 really bad ones last year, though…
his ankle was injured all season.
I wasn’t concerned about Upton this year. I completely throw out 2019. But so far this year he looks lost.
That’s fine. You can come up with whatever reason you want for his struggles, just know that he’s likely not the player he once was. Adell is the future.
So who is injured or getting traded? Hopefully they are trading La Stella for a reliever
Move Goodwin to LF, Trout in CF, and Adell in RF. Upton will feign an injury to excuse his continued horrible production. He’s one of the most over-hyped players in a long time.
Adell will be the 4th OF, Ward can’t field
Gonna be funny watching this. Kid isn’t close to ready when AA pitching gave him fits, but with how this year is going, why the hell not.
He had a .944 OPS in AA…
He struggled in his first trip to AAA, but it was a small sample size for a 20 year old
MLB #6, Baseball America #3, Baseball Prospectus #2… but you know.
In AA, he was 3.7 years younger than his competition. He hit 308, 390 553.
and the trash take of the day award goes to…
Unless it has developed this year, Adell does not poses a “big arm”. He was expected to develop an arm, it never happened.
Are they allowing him a prosthetic or does he have to Jim Abbott it?
I’m shocked, shocked, moves like these are coming right after teams gain an extra year of control.
Great for Adell. Looks to be a solid player, was a great guy signing for kid after kid in Spring Training.
Not an Angels fan, but glad they’re calling him up. After all the hype, I want to see if he’s as good as advertised.
With Robert, Pearson, and a thus-far surprising Kyle Lewis already up, it could be a great race for AL RoY.
Hate to say it, but I’m in the camp that think he’s rushed. I hope he is able to progress from his AAA numbers. Maybe his summer numbers are better, I can’t say. But in an ideal world (I know, that doesn’t exist atm)… id have liked him to get at least a few months of AAA at bats
As a fan of a team who has used the PCL for years, seeing an offensive player struggle there is a scary proposition to then say, he’ll hit MLB pitching just fine. Feels like there’s a lot of potential downside if Adell isn’t ready, at least mentally. If he comes up with a 550 OPS and a 40% K rate.. that’s not learning, that’s abuse of a prospect.. to me at least
You might be right, but there aren’t great alternatives with no MiLB season. The alternate team training site could help, but it’s not a game situation and not against the best of the best. Now that this year effectively doesn’t count toward his control, I think him struggling for a year is better than him just doing BP for a year.
CommonSense.
I don’t think anyone can be called rushed this year. There is no AAA for him to play and even the MLB is not the MLB we are use to watching.
For Halo11, hyrax, and I’m sure many others who feel this way
By no means is your logic wrong. Games in theory should be better than BP for progress. And if it is isn’t clear, I do want Adell to succeed in the majors. I just hope his AAA time isn’t a pre cursor to another rough year.
Again. You guys are right that’s there’s no good alt, and that’s why I put my caveat above too.
But it’s hard for me to not think this line of thinking could/may enter Adell’s head: Team is struggling, season so short you can fall out of place quickly…Ohtani hasn’t been himself post surgery, Upton looks bad…. I’m supposed to be the season savior!
And suddenly the kid who probably shouldn’t be in the majors is now thinking he’s gotta save a Rendon+Trout led team
There’s no perfect answer and I totally concede that. I just worry how it could mess with him mentally, if he puts that type of pressure on himself. Guys like Adell, close but needed more refinement, are really hurt by this pandemic
As a 19 year old Trout stunk. But here is something you need to know.. just in case you don’t. Trout father was a minor league player. Adell’s father was drafted by the NFL.
He’s not just a normal kid, he has a great head on his shoulders. He may stink… but I’m not worried about this getting too him. He’s not your kid out of high school who doesn’t know which way is up.
I mean, not to be a jerk, but Trout struggles as a 19 year old after no AAA time doesn’t really support, call up 21 year old Adell who has been in AAA but let’s be real, had no success in his limited time. Lol
Again I hope he’s different. But I can see most 21 year olds at least possibly putting some additional pressure on themselves coming up as a top prospect in the Entire game on a team struggling early to stay relevant. I hope he comes up and rakes as a baseball fan. But I think fans should keep low expectations with him and be Pleasantly surprised if he thrives than expect him to come in and be an above average starter, 100%. Just me tho. Dodgers have conditioned me to over prep your prospects lol
Can he give them some innings out of the bullpen?
Love to see this kid come up… he’s going to be fun to watch.
No one calling out the team for holding down their best kid for 10 games to steal a FA year? OK to stink in the meantime?
how much of an impact would Jo have had in those previous games anyway? cant win them on his own.
It’s time to put Ohtani in first base
cause Pujols can’t move anymore on first
2B Fletcher
CF Trout
1B Ohtani
3B Rendon
LF Upton/Goodwin
DH Pujols/La Stella
RF Adell
C Castro
SS Simmons
I think we need to play more small ball more hit and run and if the defense is shifting bunt the ball and just get on base it’s not that hard
You do realize Pujols is an above average first baseman? I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
pujols may not have the range he used to but he is a very good defender within his range. i rather have him playing 1st. than any other angel at the moment. besides, when simmons comes back and maddon finally decides to put fletcher at 2nd. full time pujols lack of wide range is not a concern.
You guys haven’t seen Pujols this season he can’t field anymore it’s embarrassing
Let’s also give Detmers a start or two to see his mettle. Guys got Lackey++ written all over him. Hoping hes a better person though.
As for the pitching you’ll have
1.Heaney
2.Bundy
3.Teheran
4.Canning
5.Sandoval
Use Peña and Andrise in the bullpen to shore it up get ride of Holby and Barnes they have no business pitching in the majors I would probably have Peña closing for me
Could Ohtani play OF if he can’t pitch? Adell and Ohtani in the corners, rotate Upton and Pujols at DH?
This!
If the dude hits like he does on Mlb The Show the Angel’s will be okay lol.
Time to send him down, the kid is pull happy and rolling everything over. In spring training the kid was hitting lasers to the right side. What happened to his approach at the dish?