{"id":613367,"date":"2026-03-08T14:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T14:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613367\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T14:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T14:04:16","slug":"top-angels-outfield-prospect-reassigned-to-minor-league-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613367\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Angels Outfield Prospect Reassigned To Minor League Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was a lot of buzz about Los Angeles Angels outfielder Nelson Rada coming into spring training, to the point where there was even speculation that he might even be with the team on Opening Day.<\/p>\n<p>Not even close. The 20-year old prospect was reassigned to Angels\u2019 minor league camp yesterday, despite flashing some of the speed, plus defense and on-base ability that <a href=\"https:\/\/roundtable.io\/sports\/mlb\/angels\/opinion\/angels-are-inadvertent-leaders-in-this-important-mlb-trend\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:generated the buzz;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">generated the buzz<\/a> in the first place. The team\u2019s No. 3 prospect reached Triple A Salt Lake last season, but he also struck out four teams in his first 11 at-bats, and with Mike Trout returning to the outfield, this move makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>New manager Kurt Suzuki made the call, and his comments hinted that Rada still has some work to do with his preparation and developing a professional work routine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrust me, I&#8217;m a huge Nelson Rada fan, as is everyone else in this organization,\u201d Suzuki said in a piece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/angels\/news\/angels-prospect-nelson-rada-reassigned-to-minor-league-camp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">written by Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just consistency for a younger player, right? It&#8217;s getting their work done off the field. It\u2019s early work, it&#8217;s extra work. Sometimes with a young player it&#8217;s not always about the stuff on the field. It&#8217;s the stuff off the field with the preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rada had great numbers in the minors last year, and he probably will this season as well given his talent. At 5\u20199\u201d 185 pounds, he probably won\u2019t hit for power, but no one is ruling out an in-season call-up, and Rada still looks like the team\u2019s center fielder and leadoff man of the future.<\/p>\n<p>As good as Rada\u2019s numbers were, he also needs to work on hitting the ball in the air more. His ground ball rate of just over 56 percent will play to some extent given his speed, but the Angels want him to become a complete hitter, too.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just 20 so you don&#8217;t know how much power he&#8217;s going to develop,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cBut for me, he&#8217;s already a great hitter. So when the power comes, who knows? This guy could be unbelievable. It&#8217;s just a matter of putting in the work consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While this will almost certainly be a disappointment for Rada and many Angels fans, this is probably a good decision by Suzuki. The Angels have rushed prospects like Rada in past years, which results in uneven development and fundamentally flawed players.<\/p>\n<p>The decision should also make Suzuki\u2019s job easier when it comes to sorting out the outfield. Between Trout\u2019s return to center field, Josh Lowe\u2019s injury issues and the sheer number of outfield names and faces in camp right now, the manager has a lot of work to do to figure out who\u2019s starting where and what the depth chart will look like on Opening Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a lot of buzz about Los Angeles Angels outfielder Nelson Rada coming into spring training, to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,1777,44345,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,603,55869,4,61389,5317],"class_list":{"0":"post-613367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-angels","8":"tag-angels","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-josh","11":"tag-kurt-suzuki","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-angels","14":"tag-laangels","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-angels","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangelesangels","19":"tag-mike-trout","20":"tag-minor-league-camp","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-nelson-rada","23":"tag-the-angels"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116193936499184515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}