A key member of the Angels’ middle infield will likely be out until July, as David Fletcher underwent surgery on both adductor muscles. In this article from Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, Angels head trainer Mike Frostad explained the procedure, which also repaired Fletcher’s abdominal muscles. “We’re hoping he’ll be back within a couple months,” noted Frostad. Fletcher initially tried cortisone shots, but they did not suffice.
At the moment, the Angels sit atop the AL West, one game ahead of the Astros. The club is riding high this morning after Reid Detmers shocked the world with the 12th no-hitter in franchise history, and Anthony Rendon provided entertainment by turning around left-handed to swat a home run off Brett Phillips.
Thus far, the Angels have mainly featured Andrew Velazquez at shortstop and Tyler Wade at second base, with the second base mix also including Jack Mayfield and Matt Duffy. As a November waiver claim who wasn’t able to crack the Angels’ Opening Day roster, the 27-year-old Velazquez is an unlikely candidate to start at shortstop for a playoff team. Wade, picked up in a minor trade that same month, has also generally been considered a bench player. Fletcher was something of a question mark in his own right before the surgery, as he’s posted a 69 wRC+ in 706 plate appearances dating back to 2021. Naturally, the Halos may eventually turn to the trade market this summer for reinforcements.
With the Red Sox disappointing in the early going and holding playoff odds below 23%, the availability of shortstop Xander Bogaerts could become a key summer storyline. Bogaerts is widely expected to exercise his opt-out clause after the season, and the Sox made only a token attempt to extend him. Other shortstops who might be available include Kyle Farmer, Elvis Andrus, Paul DeJong, Alcides Escobar, Didi Gregorius, and Kevin Newman. The Braves’ Dansby Swanson is in his contract year, but that club still has playoff odds over 70% according to FanGraphs. At second base, the Angels could consider Cesar Hernandez, Jonathan Schoop, Jean Segura, Adam Frazier, Rougned Odor, and Tony Kemp.
Bogaerts and Downs for Adell, Bush and Junk.
If the angels get a few hot dogs for adell I’d be all in… so this trade, I’d do in a second
You’re giving up on a 23 year old who walked four times at AAA last night. Maddon should have never platooned him with Rojas, it was like telling the kid to produce or get sent to AAA. Who wouldn’t press?
It’s like Maddon wanted him to fail. Let him relax and produce at AAA for the time being.
Bro it’s like that for every major league player. His defense was bad and it needs work. I love Adell and I believe he can one day be an mvp candidate but him getting platooned for rojas isn’t why his defense was so bad. Jeez give it a rest already
In my opinion, Adell’s struggles at the major league level are not on Maddon. And I don’t think Adell would say, in private, that his platooning was a problem. He’s a big boy. He knows he has to produce. He knows he has to earn playing time and that includes platooning and switching positions just like most young guys trying to make their mark – Marsh, Fletch, Wade, Rengifo, Duffy, etc. It’s how the game is played in 2022 – pitching/hitting match-ups and defensive versatility.
Given his pedigree, Adell has been afforded every advantage over the past several years. Given his struggles, I’m confident Perry and Joe are doing everything possible to put Adell in position to be successful while winning games.
I say this as an Adell supporter who wants to see him succeed.
He never got a chance to play every day. Jeez.
No manager in baseball would have done that.
In my opinion, the last thing Maddon wanted was Adell to be successful. What would have happened to Ward if Adell got off to a fast start? What would everyone have said if Maddon replaced Adell and Ward got off to a slow start?
Maddon wanted Ward and opened a path. You may say that’s genius, but people are judging Adell based on playing time and matchups that were destine to fail.
Just curious, is Maddon out to sabotage anyone else or is it just Adell?
Adell homered again. He’s now batting 500 with 3 HRs.
Let me ask you a question. Why would anyone in their right mind bench Adell for Rojas? The only thing that makes any sense is he wanted to leave that path open for Ward. Nothing else makes sense.
Perfect.
Is Maddon sabotaging Rojas too? Is every manager that platoons out to get one or both players? If it’s just one, how do you know which one the manager is gunning for?
That’s fine if you have your opinions. I’m sure Maddon and Minasian got together, two people who are under a lot of pressure to turn the Angels into a winning club and thought, should we prioritize having a winning club, or should we sabatoge Adell and put him in a position to fail? Marsh is left handed. Adell bats right. He got the short stick in that situation and he got stuck with less playing time. Weren’t you complaining about Ward playing too? Based off his career OPS? Now he’s looking more and more like an all star player. I’m pretty sure you would have been saying no one in their right mind would start Ward over Adell cause of his age and career OPS and yadda yadda. They clearly had a plan for starting Rojas in those games. You can say it’s insane but it’s easy to talk bad when things don’t immediately pan out. It’s not so easy when things don’t. Just cause things didn’t work out in those 20 plate appearances Rojas got doesn’t mean it was a bad call. Please spare me your litany of reasons for why every decision maddon makes is dumb and why he should have your personal cell to hit you up for every line up and in game decision. We’re all in the same fan base, we all want every player to succeed, just try and chill out and be a little more humble
A&NLWest and A21…Keep it coming. 11 seems to think anyone that doesn’t agree with him is stupid or there is a conspiracy! LOL!!!!
I appreciate the effort guys, but the guy is possibly insane or in the late stages of dementia. The guy truly believes that the guys whose job it is to win games are trying to specifically target Adell and ruin his entire career. Don’t try to use numbers, facts, or rationale. Don’t try to explain to him that Marsh was put in the exact same position as Adell. He won’t grasp any of it. He is going to repeat the same thing for the next 18 months. We just got over hearing about Claudio cost us the WS last year. This is just how insane or people with dementia are.
Eh I think he’s probably just listening to too many opiniated accounts on social media or sports shows that sensationalize everything in order to get more views. It’s unfortunately really common now and has got a lot more people acting out in anger instead of taking things in, empathizing, or taking time to think things through. He’ll be alright if he takes a step back
@A21 You might be right. Bad takes is one of the reasons i stopped watching ESPN years ago. Now this is the only place I see such bad takes and over the top conspiracy theories.
Rojas sucks. Duh.
And Ward and Trout were clearly available yet Joe threw yesterdays game away as well.
Joe likes showing he’s smarter than everyone else so he takes fliers on players that are no good. And he almost always rolls snake-eyes
My opinion of Joe is very similar to Epstein and Friedman…two GMs who could not wait to rid of him. I’ll leave at that.
It’s Joe’s lineup card. If Perry is as smart as everyone seems to believe, I’m sure he feels the same way about Joe as Epstein and Friedman.
I know what Epstein and Friedman think, I don’t know what Perry thinks. But I do know Arte hired Maddon in August against Billy Eppler’s objections.
This is the first decent team Joe has had and he still makes moves using minor league players.
Friedman didn’t get rid of Maddon. Friedman left first, to go to the Dodgers. Joe’s parting in Chicago was mutual.
Quit making things up.
I take it back I think this dude is insane. I regret sticking up for him
I didn’t say this early cause I felt bad, but you’re being really annoying. And obviously a lot of people on here think so too. Clearly you don’t understand the difference between disagreeing with one of your takes and believing the opposite of what you believe. There are more than two opinions. You’re so insecure you need to have the last word on everything cause you have this weird thing were you need to feel like you’ve won in order to feel good about yourself. Your opinion isn’t really important and no one on here really cares about it in any form other than being annoyed by it. Just drop it man. No one who opposes you is going to agree with you. You aren’t gonna convince anyone of anything, and I don’t really have the energy for this. Go play imaginary gm and manager at home
I told ya. Everyone knows Maddon and Friedman are friends. He just makes things up to push a false narrative. His world is just different than everyone elses.
Velazquez is a glove with zero bat, and Wade will be exposed the more he plays. Fletcher wasn’t hitting in the early going, but he offered hope for improvement.
You have to allow Fletch some wiggle room because he was playing injured. Hopefully he will be back to his scrappy self with a full recovery as we play towards the post season.
Why does Fletch need wiggle room? Velazquez has a dwar of 0.6. An injured Fletcher has a dwar of 0.7 in about half as many games. Clearly he is the better defensive player and when healthy a vastly superior offensive player.
Man, I’m a little disappointed in Wade’s glove, too. He hasn’t performed as well as I thought he would defensively.
Prov, I hope you’re doing well, sir! Angels looking really good, so far, my friend. This looks to be a really good year for you guys!
Thanks Clipper! Good to see you. The season is still early and Houston is on our heels with 8 wins in a row. We have to keep our foot on the gas pedal and our pitchers need to stay healthy. We have looked great so far. I remain cautiously optimistic and I am enjoying this stretch of success.
There’s good reason to though! Your youngsters are coming up and performing well, Trout is healthy, & Rondon seems to be finding his groove, even though his average is hovering around .200, from what I’ve seen in some of his ABs.
Marsh, Walsh, & especially Ward are going crazy on offense. Greats signs for the season to come…
And Syndergaard looks like a genius move, Sandoval is pitching like Scherzer. Any ideas on who you all want for deadline acquisition? I imagine a SP couldn’t hurt.
I can see us getting a viable middle infielder who can hit. I don’t know about a SP at this point but maybe. Everyone is pitching so well there’s no room in the rotation at the moment. Maybe someone with options we can stick in Salt Lake in case there is an injury down the stretch. Good problems to have for now.
Yeah, no doubt. How about Rendon’s LH home run? That’s just incredible to me that he was able to do that off of Brett Phillips.
That was awesome.
Hate to see Fletcher go down. Farmer and Swanson play hard everyday, but bat comes and go’s.
Velasquez stays at short. A Simmons type short stop, but with a lot of speed.
Angels just need a second baseman.
i really have nothing against velasquez on this team he has a great glove and plus speed but anyone can see he is lost at the plate. if he doesnt at least make some progress i dont think he can justify an every day role
For sure pohle, the Angels will go a different direction by the break if Velasquez doesn’t start hitting. I believe the only reason he’s still in there majority of the time is, because there winning. You better believe if you flip there record around, he’d be on the bench real fast, or Salt Lake.
Glad you brought up this list of candidates to help the Angels. Alcides Escobar at SS and Rougned Odor at 2B would really help carry this team to the playoffs.
Doubt most of them are even available. Not expecting Schoop to be available and DeJong would be too much payroll,as would Andrus. May as well just sign Cano for 2b.
Cano’s OPS+ is 49 and his dWAR is -0.3. How is that an improvement over Wade’s 107 OPS+ and positive 0.3 dWAR? The Mets are eating $44.7 million in salary rather than play Cano.
Odor’s 77 OPS+ is going to help? That’s 30 points lower than Wade’s.
Odor has also struggled with some pretty blatant defensive gaffes this season…
I always liked Odor’s attitude, and until this year he’s always been a solid defender by Statcast measures. But he’s having his worst year on both sides of the ball. Maybe it’s partly the team he’s on, so I wouldn’t assume he couldn’t rebound in a better environment, but he wouldn’t be my choice to improve the Angels. Brandon Drury’s having a great year (remember him) — he’d be a good get.
I wouldn’t sell Velazquez short. Joe Maddon likes his character guys and “Squid” seems like a great fit on this team. There’s still a lot of season left, but it’ll be entertaining to see how the middle infield shapes up in the coming months.
Do not forget Luis Rengifo is in the mix now. Right now combination of Wade, Velazquez and Rengifo is working. When Duffy comes back Minasian will have tough decision to make.
Yeah I’m with you on Rengifo. Ultimately I think Velazquez at SS and Rengifo at 2B is the best option right now. Rengifo has shown flashes of MLB talent and this could be the year he puts it together. Last nights 9th inning charge the ball and very quick flip to first was a great play that many fans may not understand how good it was.
What was hard about that play? It was a ball all second baseman should make. What he did well was make the play look easy. He could have kept charging, and made an easy play look hard. But he played it the way it should have been played. I guess you can give him that.
He didn’t hot dog the play. That’s a good sign.
Im with you on that he made a tough play look easy. I’ve been impressed with him so far
Based on history, Duffy is bad defensively at second but can hit a little. Wade is adequate at second, who can’t hit. Rengifo can’t hit or field.
We have all these middle infielders, but none you to want to start.
Weather the storm for ten weeks.
Going into the season, middle infield was always going to be a problem, it’s nice that Squid looks really good defensively. He’s been a big help.
duffy shouldnt play at second, not with mayfield wade and rengifo on the roster, though id take his bat over any of the others. vely looks great defensively, im content with him at short and right now i would be giving rengifo every opportunity to claim that 2b role, i think he will in the future but with wade looking no more than adequate with the stick and glove no harm in seeing where he’s at in his development now
Get well soon, Fletch.
Detmers!
Detmers is a high pedigree draft pick with a great curve and command. There is a lot of data in this game, and this no hitter should not have changed anyone’s opinion. If he allowed a couple hits, he likely would have never pitched the 8th.
However, what might change people’s opinions is he threw about 30 changeups. I don’t think he has thrown 30 changeups all year. That makes every pitch better.
He’s a low floor pitcher who can etch his way into being a solid #2.
He looked great. I think the number is 24 changes but that’s still high for him. I believe it was my comment yesterday about him needing to step up his game that was his motivation. You’re welcome.
Why not play Rengifo at short and see what he can do with consistent playing time. He’s gotta be better than Velasquez and Wade.
What makes you think that? He’s never hit, and according to Statcast is a bad second baseman.
He’s a loud player with lots of tools. But he has never quieted down and has never taken advantage of those tools.
Look at the pop up last night where he called off Trout and Velazquez. Look at Trout’s reaction. It was not his ball, but I doubt anyone trusts him enough to call him off. Until he becomes less like a bull in a China closet, I’m not optimistic about any part of his game. Give Fletcher those tools and Fletcher is an All-Star.
Most people display their china, they don’t keep it in a closet. Bulls don’t fit in closets either.
Velasquez has been fine at SS. Dude can pick it. With how the rest of the team is hitting, having a defense first SS isn’t a problem. Team chemistry is high, don’t mess with it until you need to.
Awwww 11 blocked me so I can’t reply to his posts. That’s so sad.
Congratulations! You won!
Hehehe.