The LA Angels can't afford to sleep on Michael Stefanic anymore

Top LA Angels prospect Michael Stefanic is absolutely killing it right now for the Salt Lake Bees.

Long one of the team’s most slept on prospects due to being an undrafted player who lacked power, Stefanic has quietly dominated the minors since 2018, and so far, this year is no exception.

The time is now for the LA Angels to finally give Michael Stefanic a shot in the majors.

Through 13 games and 53 plate appearances (at the time of writing) this season, Michael Stefanic has further cemented himself as the top hitter in the LA Angels farm system and one of the best in all of Triple-A as he’s currently batting .354 and is getting on base at a .415 clip.

For context, that batting average is the 13th best in all of Triple-A. Restrict this to players with at least 30 PAs and it rises to 10th. Restrict it even further to players with no major league experience and suddenly it becomes the fifth best in the league.

As for that OBP, it clocks in at 20th in the league, 16th among players with at least 30 PAs, and fifth among pure minor leaguers.

Perhaps most impressive of all, however, is Stefanic’s elite plate discipline. He’s only struck out three times this year. Three. That’s good for a 5.6% strikeout rate, which just so happens to be the best in the Pacific Coast League and second best in all of Triple-A behind the White Sox’s Carlos Perez.

Though his power remains low with just a .375 slugging percentage, there are two main caveats there.

First, he slugged .505 with the Bees last year and clubbed 16 home runs with a ridiculous 20.5% HR/FB ratio so the ability is most definitely there. And second, the Angels don’t need more power hitters with Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Jared Walsh already taking that role. What they need is an ideal leadoff man who makes solid contact, gets on base and doesn’t strikeout.

Keep in mind, none of this is a new development. This performance is coming hot on the heels of a 2021 season in which Stefanic was again one of the top hitters in Triple-A, slashing .334/.408/.505 with a miniscule 13.5% K rate. He was also playing out of his mind in Spring Training this year when he slashed .385/.529/.577 across 14 games with the big-league club.

But what about the small chance of finding Michael Stefanic a starting position at second base or even shortstop with the LA Angels this year?

Tyler Wade is currently the team’s everyday second baseman, while last year’s starter David Fletcher will continue at shortstop once he returns from the IL (hence why Velazquez will soon be sent back down).

A lot has to go right for Michael Stefanic to earn a starting position with the LA Angels over Wade or Fletcher.

From a defensive standpoint, Wade and Fletcher are simply way better fielders than Michael Stefanic. If the LA Angels want to prioritize defense up the middle, it’ll be really hard to justify starting Stefanic over these two.

Therefore, he’ll have to prove that the value he brings with his bat is enough to start him over his defensively superior counterparts. This means he’ll first need to prove as a bench player at the major league level that he deserves to be a starter more than Duffy, Mayfield or possibly even other available infielders on the trade market. If he can’t do this, then this entire argument is moot.

For the sake of argument, though, let's say Stefanic does manage to do this.

Starting with Wade, Stefanic has way more potential than him at the plate. Aside from his impressive Triple-A numbers back in 2017 which earned him his first cup of coffee with the Yankees, Wade was never a very impressive hitter in his minor league career, something that has translated to the majors as well. Posting a career triple slash of .216/.299/.308 across parts of six seasons, Wade's best year was 2021 when he owned an unremarkable .677 OPS and an 89 wRC+.

He also has a career strikeout rate of 25.4% and even less power than Stefanic with only six career major league home runs and a single-season high of seven in the minors. Should Wade’s defense slip or his bat go through a really bad and prolonged slump, Stefanic may have a chance at taking over at second.

As for Fletcher, he’s actually really similar to Stefanic since both are low-power, high-contact hitters. In a way, Fletcher simultaneously represents the best-and worst-case scenarios for Stefanic in the majors.

On one hand, he was great from 2019-2020, mostly putting up similar numbers each month and hitting .298/.356/.395 in that span. On the other hand, he struggled immensely to find any sort of consistency in 2018 and 2021.

Case in point, aside from his impressive stretch in June and July last year (.352/.377/.457) which included his 26-game hit streak, he was awful in the other four months of the season, topping out at a .264 BA in April while falling to as low as .131 in September. The end result was a .262 BA, .297 OBP and an abysmal 70 wRC+ in 2021.

Fletcher’s one saving grace in these times was that he always maintained a low strikeout rate, recording a 7.7% K rate in 2021 and 9.9% for his career.

Conversely, Stefanic has remained mostly consistent at the plate throughout each year of his career, and has steadily improved with each season. If he does make the active roster as a bench player first and manages to translate this consistency to the majors, he might have a shot at unseating Fletcher, but only if Fletcher is going through a prolonged slump at that time.

All of this is to say, a lot needs to go right for Stefanic to earn a starting role this year. Barring serious injuries to either Wade or Fletcher, he’ll likely have to settle for a bench role in 2022 before competing again next spring for a shot at a starting position.

That said, we’ll never know if any of this is even possible unless the Angels finally pull the trigger and give Stefanic some major league reps. While it seems inevitable to happen this season, let’s just hope it's sooner rather than later.