Angels’ David Fletcher Is Baseball’s Most Anonymous Talent

What he lacks in the ability to hit the ball hard, he makes up for with a knack to hit the ball in specific spots to beat opposing defenses. A look at his spray chart shows an even distribution of hits across all parts of the diamond.

“You can’t defend him, because when you move somewhere he’ll hit it where you’re not,” Gill says. “It’s the most uncanny, elite performance skill I’ve ever seen. If you move your right fielder in, he’s gonna hit it over the right fielder’s head. I don’t know how, but he will. It’ll fall where they’re not.”

The doubts about his ability to hit persisted even after he reached the majors. After he hit his first home run as a rookie, the Angels’ dugout opted against using their typical silent treatment for a player’s first career homer and instead greeted Fletcher warmly in the dugout because, in then manager Mike Scioscia’s words, “We don’t know how many more Fletch is going to hit.”...

Fletcher’s success is proof that there still exists space for old-school players in today’s game. In a year where the league batting average is flirting with the all-time low and there have been a record number of no-hitters, Fletcher’s approach flies in the face of the three true outcomes that have been popularized in the Statcast era, when exit velocity and barrel statistics are readily available. By those measures, Fletcher will likely never stand out, but he’s thrived at the highest level precisely because he’s different, not in spite of that.