The Angels took a chance on Franklin Barreto, hoping a change of scenery would help the former top prospect who has experienced mostly failure so far in the majors. But an injury interrupted his debut with Anaheim.
Barreto was the return from Oakland at the trade deadline in August for free-agent-to-be Tommy La Stella. Barreto was a top-100 prospect in all of baseball for four straight seasons, ranked highly by Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, and Baseball Prospectus every year from 2015-18.
But in parts of four years in the majors, Barreto has hit just .175/.207/.342. Of the 599 major league hitters with at least 200 plate appearances from 2017-20, Barreto’s 45 wRC+ ranks 589th.