The underlying data shows this young Angels player is on a superstar trajectory

The Angels' ultimate goal in 2025 is to see growth and development from their core young pieces as they work towards being competitive and building the foundation of the next great Halo contender. Perhaps the most important player in this quest is shortstop Zach Neto.

After being selected 13th overall in the 2022 draft, Neto became the first player in his draft class to make his big league debut, getting the call-up from the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas to the big club on April 15, 2023.

Neto appeared in 84 games that season as a 22-year-old, and while he showed some flashes, he had not yet arrived, posting an 88 wRC+. 2024 was a year of massive growth for the youngster, who logged 155 games and made the leap from a young player with promise to a truly above-average hitter, clocking 23 dingers and posting a 114 wRC+.

That 2024 performance raised expectations significantly for Neto. If 2024 was his breakout, then 2025 was to be his ascension to superstardom. Unfortunately, offseason shoulder surgery delayed the start of his season, but since being activated from the IL on April 18, Neto has been one of the best shortstops in baseball.

Neto's .283/.324/.551 line has been good for a 143 wRC+. While his return from injury has left him shy of the requisite number of plate appearances to show up on the leaderboards, among shortstops with at least 140 plate appearances, his performance as measured by wRC+ ranks second in the majors, ahead of bona fide superstars like Bobby Witt Jr. and Francisco Lindor.

The data suggests even more production from Angels star Zach Neto, with one small red flag

What Neto has done this year is crush baseballs, but the extent to which he's doing it puts him in rarified air. His batted ball data isn't just very good, it puts him among the game's elite.

Neto has been scorching the ball with an average exit velocity of 93.7 miles per hour, which ranks in the 94th percentile. His barrel rate, 17.5%, is 96th percentile, and his 50.5% hard hit rate is in the 88th percentile.

Perhaps most impressive, and most telling of how well he's been swinging the bat, his launch-angle sweet-spot percentage, a metric that measures batted-ball events with launch angles between 8 and 32 degrees which is the "sweet spot" to do damage, is 51.5 percent and Neto stands alone there, ranking in the 100th percentile.

If you thought his .551 slugging percentage was good, imagine a world where he's slugging .606, which is where his expected slugging percentage pegs him based on the quality of his contact. That metric has Neto at the top of the mountain as well, ranking in the 98th percentile.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Neto's quality of contact metrics is that most of his peers in this stratosphere are corner outfielders, DHs, and first basemen -- positions where you expect to see powerful production. However, Neto doing this as a shortstop is nothing short of amazing.

There are two caveats, however. First, he'll need to keep it up. 35 games and 148 plate appearances are a nice sample, but he'll need to maintain this over the rest of the season in order to truly prove that this is the kind of hitter he's become.

Second, his plate discipline numbers suggest some risk. Like many Angels hitters, he ranks near the bottom in whiff rate at 26.7%, which comes in the 36th percentile. Those whiffs have led to a strikeout rate of 28.4% (11th percentile) and a walk rate of 4.7% (13th percentile).

The silver lining is that Neto isn't chasing pitches out of the zone very often, with his 25.0% chase rate coming in healthy, ranking in the 68th percentile. If he can clean up some of the plate discipline issues and a few more walks, he'll be even more unstoppable.

Neto, somewhat quietly, has begun to emerge as an elite hitter, and if he can continue this type of performance through the rest of the 2025 campaign, the rest of the league will be put on notice.

More LA Angels News from Halo Hangout