3 burning questions from spring training the Angels are nowhere close to answering

Will Jo Adell provide clarity as to his place in the Angels' future?

The age-old Jo Adell question continues. Though it feels as if Adell has been around forever (he debuted in 2020), for a variety of reasons, he's never really gotten a full season's workload at the big league level.

Last season was his high-water mark for both plate appearances and games played, recording 451 plate appearances (previous high was 285 in 2022) over 130 games (previous high was 88 in 2022). Still, Adell is running out of chances to prove that he belongs as part of the young nucleus moving forward.

With Kyren Paris's ability to play center field along with prospects Matthew Lugo and Nelson Rada in the pipeline, Adell faces a lot of pressure to figure out how to turn his raw talent into actual production consistently. This makes 2025 a make-or-break year for the 26-year-old.

Much like Trout this year, there's a big discrepancy between Adell's production and what the underlying metrics say his production should be. His line through the first 18 games he's played is just .226/.273/.387 good for an 88 wRC+.

However, the advanced stats paint an elite picture of Adell. His batspeed is 97th percentile. He also earns superb marks for average exit velocity (69th percentile), hard hit rate (72nd percentile), and barrel percentage (77th percentile). All of that comes together to produce stellar expected results, such as his expected batting average of .285 and expected slugging of .489.

This has always been the problem for Adell: the expected performance and the actual results rarely line up. He's been through several adjustments and at times shown flashes, such as his two homers in one inning against Tampa earlier this season and his game-winning double on Easter Sunday, but they never seem to come together to yield consistent results.

Adell's biggest issue isn't anything mechanical, it's taking his elite athleticism and translating it into actual baseball skills. The clock is ticking on him figuring that out, and nearly a month in, the Angels are nowhere near receiving an answer to the riddle of Jo Adell.

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