The Angels Have Their Franchise Shortstop in Zach Neto

The Los Angeles Angels have failed to meet expectations once again in 2024. The bar was set low for the team ahead of this season with the departure of Shohei Ohtani. However, they’ll more than likely still finish the season under the predictions that projection systems like Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA and FanGraphs’ ZiPS had them slated for.

Their season took a turn when their other MVP candidate who was still actually on the roster, Mike Trout, went down with an injury that held the future hall of famer to a mere 126 plate appearances. Trout will not return in 2024.

This mess of a season has been a predictable mess for the Halos. Though, recent draft picks have made their way to the big leagues in a remarkably short amount of time. Just last year, the Angels drafted FAU first baseman, Nolan Schanuel, with their first-round pick. Schanuel played in just 22 minor league games before debuting in the show in 2023. He performed well in his small sample of 29 big-league games.

Schanuel has been the everyday first baseman for the club in 2024 and has posted an impressive 107 wRC+ after a poor start to 2024. He was drafted as a hit-over-power profile and as a first baseman, it can be difficult to build a lineup with a lack of power output at that position nowadays.

Earlier this season, the Angels drafted second baseman, Christian Moore, out of Tennessee. Moore has been outstanding in his short pro career to this point. He’s played in just 21 pro games but has already made his way to Double-A. In 19 games at that level, he’s slashing .304/.345/.519, good for a 155 wRC+. Moore will likely get promoted once more prior to the season’s end.

It’s clear that the Angels have a knack for drafting bats that can progress through their system in record time and become impact players for their big league lineup less than a year or two years post-draft day.

Perhaps the most impressive example of this has been shortstop, Zach Neto.

Zach Neto: Cornerstone of the Rebuild

Neto has been hands down the Angels’ most valuable player in 2024. He leads the Halos in fWAR with 2.7. The next highest position player on the list in fWAR is Logan O’Hoppe with 1.8.

Among qualified hitters on the Angels, Neto also leads the team in wRC+, posting a 113 to this point in the season. The shortstop is leading the way in homers, as well. His 19 long balls have set him just one bomb away from a 20/20 season, as he’s swiped 23 bases already.

The last player not named Shohei Ohtani or Mike Trout to have a 20/20 season for the Angels was Bobby Abreu in 2010.

Neto will almost certainly become the newest member of this exclusive club and cement his name in Angels’ history among some of the biggest names in the sport’s modern era.

On top of his fantastic production, he’s also second on the team in defensive value, per FanGraphs. He sits just behind O’Hoppe in that category.

How Does Neto Stack Up Among Other Shortstops?

The Angels have been a dreadful team to watch play baseball in 2024. Saying that Neto is far and away their best player might not hold as much weight due to the lack of performance the Halos have seen at nearly every other position on the field, aside from shortstop.

These six stats, in my opinion, do a great job of giving a good idea as to how valuable a player has been with one quick glance. When you see how he stacks up to the players at his position, it’s impossible to declare Neto anything but a top-10 shortstop in the game.

He may not fall into the elite category for his position, so calling him the “cornerstone” of the rebuild may sound like I’m jumping the gun.

How Does Neto Stack Up Among Other 2022 Draftees?

It’s crucial to remember that this guy was playing for Campbell University in the Spring of 2022.

The turnover from Division I baseball to being the guy that a Major League baseball team relies on to trot out to shortstop and slot into the two-hole every day is unbelievable.

When you take a look at some of the fellow draftees from the first round of the 2022 MLB draft, you see, Jackson Holliday, Termarr Johnson, Druw Jones, and other highly touted high school prospects. Holliday has already made his debut. He is currently with the big league squad and has a 55 wRC+ on the season.

These comparisons are hard to make considering that Holliday was drafted as a prep talent. His struggles in the big leagues are to be expected as he is younger than the college bats selected.

With that being said, the college bats selected in 2022 are players like Jacob Berry, Gavin Cross, Brooks Lee, and Jace Jung. Jung and Lee have already made their big league debuts but did so this season, not the year directly after being drafted.

Lee was put on the IL after being injured while with the big league squad. He’s set to return to Triple-A this weekend. In the small sample size of just under 30 games, Lee has posted an 81 wRC+, a product of a well below-average slash line.

Jace Jung was recently promoted for his big league debut and has played in just 11 games this year. He’s hitting to the tune of an 93 wRC+ in that span of games.

These points are not meant to critique either Jung or Lee for not producing in their very young MLB careers. Rather, it is meant to highlight the sheer value that Neto is providing the Halos despite being drafted in 2022.

Who knows who will be the best of this group of three in the next three, five, or even ten years? One thing is for certain; Zach Neto should not be expected to perform in the way that he has on a consistent basis in 2024. This season is truly remarkable by any standard for a young player, let alone a young player whose development was rushed to an extreme point in order to get him in a big league batter’s box as soon as possible.

Neto has played in 213 games since his 2023 debut. In that span, he’s a 103 wRC+ hitter slashing .243/.314/.420. He’s hit 28 homers and stolen 28 bases. He’s not the flashiest defender, especially for a shortstop but his 3.8 career fWAR is incredibly impressive given his lack of experience.

If Neto were to stay stagnant in terms of development and continue to play at this level without improving, he’d be a 2.9 fWAR per 150-game player. That fWAR figure would rank him just outside the top 10 in shortstops every season since 2021. Putting him alongside names such as J.P. Crawford in 2021, Amed Rosario in 2022, Jeremy Peña in 2023, and Dansby Swanson in 2024.

Those are the names of big league veterans, not the names of guys trying to lead their college baseball team to Omaha for the College World Series two years ago. Neto has been a thrill to watch in 2024 and his ceiling will only rise with time.