The 2024 campaign was a pivotal one for the career arc of Los Angeles Angels outfielder Jo Adell. Out of minor league options, the Angels had to either trade, waive or keep the volatile slugger on the active roster for the entire season. They opted to go with the third option, giving him full runway to fight through mistakes and adjust at the plate.
His season was defined by one major switch in his approach. Manager Ron Washington, in late July, had Adell scrap his leg kick in favor of a toe tap. Adell had a .649 OPS prior to the switch, and posted a .771 in the month after before his season ended due to an oblique injury.
Adell’s final slash line in 2024 was .207/.280/.402 with a .682 OPS and a career best 89 OPS+ in 130 games. While those numbers don’t stand out by any means as Adell enters his arbitration years, he feels he found something with the toe tap that he can use in 2025, according to Jeff Fletcher of The O.C. Register:
“Me avoiding the leg kick is probably final,” said Adell, whose season was ended by an oblique injury. “I think I’ve gotten to the point where I found something that’s simple and allows me to get to the ball and make better decisions, and that’s what I have to do at the plate. I’m looking forward to continuing to work on that and getting that the way it needs to be.”
For Washington, Adell’s development is going to directly correlate with the number of self-inflicted wounds he imposes upon himself in games. He saw great strides in that category in 2024, but believes there is even more room to grow.
“We’ve got to learn how to quit giving away so many at-bats,” Washington said. ”Not that he realized when he was in those at-bats that he was giving them away, but when you look back at it, and now that he’s not playing he can realize how many he gave away. That’s a part of his winter. He has to learn how to handle every single at-bat. He’s still gonna give some away. We do that, but not as many as he gave away.
“But he had a tremendous year. His defense went to another level. He settled down on the base paths a little bit. He got us some big hits in some big situations.”
The Angels and Adell are going to have intriguing contract negotiations this offseason, and much is dependent on what the team decides to do in the outfield. But all signs point to Adell being back in 2025 with a new plate approach and a new outlook on his career.
Angels farm system pitching ranks top five
The Angels have ranked towards the bottom of nearly every farm system ranking for several years now. A combination of ill-advised trades and fast-tracking young players to the big leagues left the team with a barren development pipeline.
It was less than two months ago — after the late-July trade deadline — that the Angels were ranked 30th in MLB by Baseball America for their farm system. But part of the reason for this low ranking is a true lack of depth among position players. Angels first-round pick in 2024, Christian Moore, debuted at No. 2 on the team’s top 30, a sign of how little the team had in terms of organizational depth.
But a look at just the pitchers in the Angels’ farm system would tell a different story. And Sam Dykstra, Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo — MLB.com’s foremost farm system experts — believe the Angels have the fourth-best pitching farm system in the Major Leagues.