OC Register: Jo Adell looks to crack Angels’ roster after a winter of workouts

[AngelsWin.com]

TEMPE, Ariz. — Just a couple weeks after the 2022 season ended, manager Phil Nevin was at the Angels’ complex in Arizona and he spotted someone in the distance, taking fly balls.

Upon closer inspection, Nevin realized it was Jo Adell, who was starting a winter-long program of work on and off the field in Arizona.

Adell said Friday that he worked out at the complex in Arizona “close to” every single day of the winter.

“What this guy has done in the last four or five months for me is as impressive as anything he could have done during the season last year,” Nevin said. “No vacations. Nothing. This guy didn’t miss a day. I’m really proud of the work he’s doing.”

Whether all of that will translate into more consistency hitting or catching baseballs remains to be seen, but there’s no question that it’s changed Adell’s body.

Adell said he’s at 225 pounds, up from around 210 last season.

“He’s a beast,” Nevin said. “He’s huge.”

Jo Adell pic.twitter.com/gDG1BBU2F6

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) February 17, 2023

Adell said his goal wasn’t to get bigger, but it just happened from the work he put in over the winter. He combined it with staying on the field, so he believes the extra muscle hasn’t detracted from his mobility.

“You can put the weight on and not be moving with it,” Adell said, “so it was good that I was able to kind of stay moving, stay fluid with that weight … I feel good where I’m at.”

Adell, 23, is beginning spring training facing a fight for playing time in the big leagues. The Angels acquired Hunter Renfroe for one starting spot in the outfield and they signed Brett Phillips to be the fourth outfielder.

That means that Adell either has to wait until someone gets hurt, or he has to perform so well that the Angels have no choice but to get him big-league at-bats.

“At the end of the day, I show up every year and I expect to make the team,” Adell said. “I showed up last year in camp expecting to make it. This year is no different. We definitely have good players in camp. That’s what you expect. If you compete on a team that’s wanting to compete at a high level and get to the postseason, there are going to be good players out there. So now my goal is to continue to compete and, hopefully, at the end of camp, the best players are going to make the team and hopefully I’m one of them.”

So far, Adell has not lived up to the blue-chip prospect status that’s been attached to his name since he was the 10th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He has a career .215 average and a .616 OPS in 557 major-league plate appearances. He has hit 15 homers. His 34.8% strikeout rate is one of the worst in the majors, compounded by a walk rate of just 4.7%.

Adell said he’s more concerned about his fly ball rate, though.

“I need to get the ball in the air,” he said. “I think that was the biggest thing. I’m not going to try to force it to happen, but I’m going to put myself in a position where it does happen… I think with my bat speed and my ability and my power, good things are going to happen when the ball is elevated.”

Adell’s fly ball percentage was 22.8% last season, which is slightly below the major league average. His average lunch angle was 16.7 degrees, which is actually above the major league average of 12.1 degrees. That suggests that Adell hit too many popups.

Adell said he and new Angels hitting coach Marcus Thames have been working to coax better results out of his raw tools.

“Me and Marcus have talked a good bit about approach, about things that we want to work on when it comes to what I’m seeing in the box,” Adell said. “I’m not ever getting in to hit worried about swinging and missing. That’s not who I am. That’s not my DNA. I’m going to go up and hopefully be able to elevate the baseball, get something I can drive. That’s who I am. And so as long as I stick to that, I feel good about what I’ll produce.”

At this point, the Angels are not built to be relying on anything from Adell. They have Mike Trout, Taylor Ward and Renfroe as the starting outfielders. Adell still has an option this year, so he can play at Triple-A if he doesn’t crack the big-league roster.

“Right now my goal is to come out, be ready every day at 7:30 in the morning and try to make the team and show that I’ve got what it takes to be a part of this squad,” Adell said. “It’s going to be a good team. This team is going to play well this year. I want to be a part of that. I want to get to the postseason and I want to win. These are my goals. We’ll continue to work through spring training and see what happens.”

NOTES

The Angels have hired Trent Woodward, the private hitting instructor who helped turn around Ward’s career. Woodward will work as a consultant, dropping in on the Angels or their minor-league affiliates from time to time throughout the season. …

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The Angels believe one of the issues with their bullpen last year was relying too heavily on left-hander Aaron Loup at the start of the season, so they are hoping that the addition of lefty Matt Moore can spread the workload more. “I think we’ll be able to manage the usage better with the more weapons we have,” Nevin said. …

Right-hander Sam Bachman, the Angels’ first-round pick in 2021, has impressed Nevin with his work over the winter and early in camp. Bachman struggled with his velocity after a back injury last season, but he seems to be beyond that now. “It’s electric,” Nevin said. “When we drafted him two years ago, those are the things we saw. It just keeps getting better. Even the other pitchers gravitate over to watch him throw. It’s that impressive.”

View the full article

[Angelsjunky]

35 minutes ago, AngelsWin.com said:

 

Adell said he’s at 225 pounds, up from around 210 last season.

“He’s a beast,” Nevin said. “He’s huge.”

....

“Me and Marcus have talked a good bit about approach, about things that we want to work on when it comes to what I’m seeing in the box,” Adell said. “I’m not ever getting in to hit worried about swinging and missing. That’s not who I am. That’s not my DNA. I’m going to go up and hopefully be able to elevate the baseball, get something I can drive. That’s who I am. And so as long as I stick to that, I feel good about what I’ll produce.”

I want Jo to be successful as much as any fan, but I'm not sure his physique ever was the problem. Elevating the ball, ok, fair enough. But what about plate discipline? What about pitch recognition? 

All of this reads like a guy who might become, I don't know, Hunter Renfroe? Low BA, low walks, good power. 

35 minutes ago, AngelsWin.com said:

Right-hander Sam Bachman, the Angels’ first-round pick in 2021, has impressed Nevin with his work over the winter and early in camp. Bachman struggled with his velocity after a back injury last season, but he seems to be beyond that now. “It’s electric,” Nevin said. “When we drafted him two years ago, those are the things we saw. It just keeps getting better. Even the other pitchers gravitate over to watch him throw. It’s that impressive.”

 

Now this is good to hear.

[Lazorko Saves]

Probably the one time "BSOHL" is probably true, and no one says it.

[Inside Pitch]

2 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

The Angels believe one of the issues with their bullpen last year was relying too heavily on left-hander Aaron Loup at the start of the season,

... lol

[Docwaukee]

can't ask for more than him spending the entire off season doing supervised baseball related things.  

I actually think him filling out his frame a bit is a good thing.  It's always seemed difficult for those long and lean guys to maintain a consistent swing.  

Launch angle isn't necessarily a great indicator of getting the ball in the air the right way.  It only tells you how the ball came off the bat at the point of contact but tell you nothing about the hitters attack angle.  

Anything hit with a LA from about the low 20's to the low 30's will be a hr if the EV is about 95 or greater.  Otherwise, it's a fly out.  

Most hits are typically a LA from about 10 to about the low 20's that have a lower exit velo because that's usually over the infielders and in front of the OFers.  But even a LA of 0 is still theoretically a line drive if you hit it hard enough.  

A negative LA is essentially a ground ball every time or at least for practical purposes.  

So let's use Jo as an example.  

He had a total of 285 PA of which he put the ball in play on 162.   

His LA was 34 or above on 42 of those and he was 3/42 with 3 singles.  All of which were bloop hits (EVs of about 55-70 for all three).  

LA of 20-32, he was 13 for 21 with 7hrs, 5 singles, and a double

LA of 10-19, he was 25-31 with 14 singles, 8 doubles, 2 triples, and a hr.

LA of 0-9, he was 12-19 with 9 singles and 3 doubles.

LA of below 0, he was 7-45, with 7 singles.  

so 107 times he made contact he had a very low prob of getting a hit.  That's 66% of the time.

using Judge for comparison, he had 65 times he made contact with an LA of 37 or above (his sweet spot) and he had 6 hits.  and 108 PA of a LA below ).  So of his 420 PA where he put the ball in play, he was outside of the optimal LA zone 41% of the time.  

Mike Trout - 46 below 0, and 87 above 37.  Of a total of 300 balls in play.  44% in the optimal zone.  

I used those two as extreme elite examples, but they both whiff a lot and have tremendous bat speed/EV.  But they're elite because of the way they're able to repeat their point of contact.

2 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

“I need to get the ball in the air,” he said. “I think that was the biggest thing. I’m not going to try to force it to happen, but I’m going to put myself in a position where it does happen… I think with my bat speed and my ability and my power, good things are going to happen when the ball is elevated.”

he is absolutely correct but the way you achieve the appropriate launch angle consistently is all about your attack angle and where you make contact in the swing path.  There are some side by side comps in the Adell thread from a few weeks back and one of the most noticeable things to me was how much further out in front he is making contact.  There's a big difference between what he means by elevating the ball and just hitting the ball in the air

For your viewing pleasure, here's a basic video about attach angle and launch angle from one of the driveline instructors (which is where Jo spent some time this off season).  

 

 

[BTH]

4 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

The Angels believe one of the issues with their bullpen last year was relying too heavily on left-hander Aaron Loup at the start of the season, so they are hoping that the addition of lefty Matt Moore can spread the workload more. “I think we’ll be able to manage the usage better with the more weapons we have,” Nevin said. …

 

2 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

... lol

He was better statistically in April than in any other month, but I don't know how much of that can be contributed to his heavy April workload.

[Pancake Bear]

5 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

Adell said Friday that he worked out at the complex in Arizona “close to” every single day of the winter.

“What this guy has done in the last four or five months for me is as impressive as anything he could have done during the season last year,” Nevin said. “No vacations. Nothing. This guy didn’t miss a day. I’m really proud of the work he’s doing.”

That's excellent. Love the work ethic. Love that he's putting in the time and working on something that he was clearly well below the level he needed to be at. 

5 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

So far, Adell has not lived up to the blue-chip prospect status that’s been attached to his name since he was the 10th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He has a career .215 average and a .616 OPS in 557 major-league plate appearances. He has hit 15 homers. His 34.8% strikeout rate is one of the worst in the majors, compounded by a walk rate of just 4.7%.

Adell said he’s more concerned about his fly ball rate, though.

This part is more concerning. He had a more than solid BABIP. His slugging wasn't amazing, but it was hardly the problem. The issue was his poor batting average and on base percentage. They were really bad. The K and BB% we're also abysmal. That suggests to me the problem is not how he's hitting, but actually, y'know, hitting the ball? I don't know if that's pitch recognition, contact ability, plate discipline, or what, but that seems to me to be the obvious problem, and it's perplexing to me that he's focusing (as I read it) on hitting more bombs. 

Am I way off base here or missing something? Because this emphasis doesn't make sense to me, and I don't get why the team and hitting coach wouldn't be conveying to him what the real problem is unless he's just ignoring them, but the fact that he went to Driveline suggests he's coachable. I just don't get it. 

[Blarg]

I think you are trying to make conclusions from an interview while ignoring he spent the winter at driveline and with the Angels new hitting coach. He may not be correctly describing what all his focus is but it has been under supervision and a in a program to improve his game. He hasn't been at home eating snacks and then hitting a couple tennis balls off a tee and calling it good enough. 

[Docwaukee]

42 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

and it's perplexing to me that he's focusing (as I read it) on hitting more bombs. 

he's not.  read my post above.  it's long but it'll give you an idea of why he said what he said.  He gave the short version of what they worked on at driveline.  He should have said that he's focused on elevating the ball 'the right way'.  

[Revad]

33 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

he's not.  read my post above.  it's long but it'll give you an idea of why he said what he said.  He gave the short version of what they worked on at driveline.  He should have said that he's focused on elevating the ball 'the right way'.  

Maybe it’s spring so I’m overly optimistic but all signs are green for 2024, or this year if there’s a chunk of time missed by one of the starting OF.  Let’s see where things stand at the end of spring training.

[Docwaukee]

51 minutes ago, Revad said:

Maybe it’s spring so I’m overly optimistic but all signs are green for 2024, or this year if there’s a chunk of time missed by one of the starting OF.  Let’s see where things stand at the end of spring training.

I think he pretty much just rebuilt his swing so it could take a beat or two for him to get comfortable.  There's still a reasonable chance he just doesn't have the eye hand to make it work.  I just really think he was left to a lot of his own learning and since his results in the minors has been very good, he wasn't inclined to focus on certain things.  Frankly because how would he know.  But an entire off season under a watchful eye with feedback from someone other than his buddy Marsh, I think he's got a good chance of progressing a lot more quickly.  

[Stradling]

If his focus was simply hitting more bombs then he wouldn’t have changed his swing to being much shorter and more direct to the ball.  

[Angel Oracle]

Short summary of Adell’s 2022 season:

Far too many swing and misses and far too many soft outs in the air.

Now, if his new swing holds true, that cuts down the soft outs in the air.

The key beyond that then is, improving pitch recognition to a passable rate.

[TempeAngel]

18 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

The Angels have hired Trent Woodward, the private hitting instructor who helped turn around Ward’s career. Woodward will work as a consultant, dropping in on the Angels or their minor-league affiliates from time to time throughout the season. …

 

This is great news! If he can do for others what he did for Ward it will pay dividends.

[BTH]

Adell leaning into elevating the ball is what he should be doing.

That’s his strength as a a hitter. You’re not gonna drastically improve his contact rates and plate discipline. He needs to do damage when he does make contact.

The avenue for him is low avg, low obp, high slug, and hopefully get to 45 or 50 defense in a corner.

[Angel Oracle]

26 minutes ago, Trendon said:

Adell leaning into elevating the ball is what he should be doing.

That’s his strength as a a hitter. You’re not gonna drastically improve his contact rates and plate discipline. He needs to do damage when he does make contact.

The avenue for him is low avg, low obp, high slug, and hopefully get to 45 or 50 defense in a corner.

Essentially Buxton, but with just passable defense.

[TempeAngel]

On 2/17/2023 at 1:41 PM, AngelsWin.com said:

Upon closer inspection, Nevin realized it was Jo Adell, who was starting a winter-long program of work on and off the field in Arizona.

Adell said Friday that he worked out at the complex in Arizona “close to” every single day of the winter.

 

Did he spend time in Kent at Driveline also this Winter? It's been mentioned in posts on multiple threads.