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David Fletcher
Time with Angels: 2018-current
Stats: .285/.339/.377/.716, 7 HR, 74 RBI, 251 H, 48 2B, 94 OPS+
Baseball Reference WAR: 6.8
FanGraphs WAR: 5.3
Combined WAR: 6.05
He’s only played two seasons for the Angels, but David Fletcher has already cracked the Top 100 list.
We’ve already talked about Fletcher during these two rankings, as his 2019 season came in as the 100th greatest season in Angels history. I went more in-depth on his 2019 campaign over there, so go give that article a read if you haven’t yet!
Fletcher made his Angels debut in 2018, appearing in only half of the teams games. He hit a very respectable .275, but that was largely due to a high amount of singles, hence why his slugging percentage (.363) and OPS (.678) were so low. Of Fletcher’s 78 hits, 57 of them were singles. He only hit one homer during his rookie season.
Speaking of singles, Fletcher was nearly the best last season at hitting them. Of his 173 hits in 2019, 133 of them were singles, the third most in the American League. He did increase his power numbers, upping his home run number to six and hitting 12 more doubles.
As I mentioned in the previous article, aside from hitting a lot of singles, Fletcher is well known for his great defense at third base. He was a Gold Glove Award finalist in 2019. His defensive WAR of 2.2 was the third best among defenders in the American League, and second best among third basemen.
With only two years under his belt, Fletcher is going to find himself climbing these rankings for years to come.