Jo Adell Stole Three Homers And A Win From The Mariners
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Jo Adell Stole Three Homers And A Win From The Mariners

April 5, 2026
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If Jo Adell hadn't been so precocious, his arrival as a big leaguer would seem right on time. The Angels made him the 10th overall pick of the 2017 MLB Draft and the breadth and voltage of his talent quickly made him one of the top prospects in the sport even before that collection of tools became something more comprehensive. There were extenuating circumstances, as there always are—the Angels' singular dedication to moving its top prospects through the minors at peak speed and the fragrant fug of low-intensity mediocrity sitting over everything they do, the disruption of baseball's Covid hiatus, and how hard baseball is at the highest level even for those with superhuman skills.

Jo Adell Stole Three Homers And A Win From The Mariners

But the results were what they were. Adell debuted in the Majors as a 21-year-old in 2020 and mostly looked overmatched in the parts of the four subsequent seasons that he spent at the level. Over these big league stints of 38, 35, 88, and 17 games Adell was mostly unable to reach those tools and pretty comprehensively unable to use them; back at Triple-A, he still looked more or less like Jo Adell when healthy enough to do so, but in the Majors he mostly looked like he belonged back in Triple-A. What separates bad organizations from good ones is how quickly and how well they can straighten out the kinks that introduce themselves into seemingly sure-shot baseball careers like Adell's; the Angels, pardon the jargon, are not a good baseball organization, and so there was some reason to think that Adell might not figure it out there, or at all. And, the Angels being the Angels, it was easy to miss it when Adell started to figure it out in 2024. His defense in right field improved enough to make him playable there, he got to his over-the-fence power in big-league games in a way that he previously hadn't, and the Angels were lousy enough and Adell healthy enough that he finally spent something like a full season in the bigs. It wasn't the outcome that anyone had in mind during his years as one of the game's best-regarded offensive prospects—you wouldn't exactly feel awful batting him ninth, raved his entry in the 2025 Baseball Prospectus Annual—but very little about becoming a big leaguer is linear even for players as talented as Adell.

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