During the off-season, the Angels and Braves made an odd swap to some fans, but a business savvy move to others. The Angels were bent on making room for young Catcher Logan O’Hoppe as their main backstop with Matt Thaiss sitting backup. The problem was they also had veteran backstop in Max Stassi. They also had already made room for young Shorstop in Zach Neto by sending down veteran and former future infielder in David Fletcher. Fletcher and the Halos agreed to a 5-year/$26M pact in 2021, but unfortunately, that’s when his production fell off. To be fair, the Angels probably thought they were making a Braves-like move by signing a deal with someone who had just had a career year in 2020, grabbing some MVP votes and hitting .319/.376/.425 AND was a local product which only added to his appeal to fans. But then he became average, at best, and was sent down to Triple-A due to service time. Max Stassi was on his walk year going into 2024, and as I mentioned, the team had Logan O’Hoppe under control for much team and a lot longer.
The trade happened in December of 2023, shortly after the Braves had traded for OF Jarred Kelenic, another busted top prospect from the AL West. The Braves would receive INF/OF David Fletcher and C Max Stassi for “depth” pieces 1B Evan White (another busted top AL West prospect) and a Rule 5 Draft pick in LHP Tyler Thomas who was grabbed from the Mets. Atlanta saw Fletcher as a higher upside infielder than White, who had missed the previous two seasons with hip surgeries, and hoped to fix his swing, as the glove and arm were already there. Max Stassi was traded away from Atlanta the following day to the White Sox for cash, but is currently on the 60-day IL.
All of this laid out, the biggest thing has come into play this past week. With 2B Ozzie Albies going onto the Injured List with a broken toe after being hit with a pitch, the Braves all of a sudden found themselves in need of an Infielder; enter David Fletcher. Fletcher was called up immediately, and has played two games, starting one (going 0-3 with a Strikeout), but more importantly, reached 5 years of MLB service time. And in doing so, David Fletcher can now refuse assignments to the Minors, and become a Free Agent, without losing the money that he has on his ledger from the previous Angels extension that he signed. So he is guaranteed $6M for this season, $6.5M for 2025, and at least $1.5M in a Buyout if no team chooses to pick up his Club Options for 2026 at $8M and 2027 at $8.5M dollars. The Angels were only days away from being on the hook for all of this money, but they instead shifted it over to Atlanta in exchange for some “prospects” who will most likely never reach the Major League team. After a “bad signing”, albeit at only $26M, the Angels took on a lot less in exchange for getting rid of that bad contract.
Although I have done nothing but talk about how bad David Fletcher has been recently, he still has the upside of being an elite defensive glove at all four positions in the Infield, and also Left Field. From 2022-23, he hit .253/.292/.331 for a lowly OPS+ of 75 over 94 Games. To say the least, it could be worse. Having a utility player on the bench who hits .250 and can play five different positions (and Catcher in an emergency) for only $6M~ isn’t the worst thing for a team looking to make the playoffs.
