The Los Angeles Angels on Monday announced that outfield prospect Jo Adell has been recalled from Triple-A Salt Lake. Adell is expected to be in the lineup on Tuesday when the Angels face the Rangers.
Adell, 22, was not so long ago regarded as one of the top prospects in all of baseball. Thanks in large part to his power potential, the former 10th overall pick was a consensus top-five prospect coming into the 2020 season. The Angels promoted him for the COVID-abbreviated season, and he struggled badly with both the bat (.161/.212/.266) and glove in 38 games. The sample size was small, and the season was anything but an ideal one for an MLB debut. However, Adell truly looked lost, and this season he was back at Triple-A for the first time since 2019.
The results have been promising. While there will probably always be a lot of swing-and-miss in Adell's game, he's looked revitalized at the plate. In 73 games for Salt Lake, he's batted .289/.342/.592 with 23 home runs and 17 doubles. Yes, the Pacific Coast League is a hitter's haven, but those numbers are impressive in any context. Plus, those numbers have been trending up in recent days, and prior to his promotion Adell had homered in three straight games.
In L.A., Adell figures to be in for regular playing time given that Mike Trout, Justin Upton and Dexter Fowler are all sidelined with injuries. The hope of course is that this developmental reset plus the more normal rhythms of the 2021 season will help Adell adapt to pitching at the highest level much better than he was able to last year. He's still very young, and he still has tremendous potential.
