Are The Key Reasons for Jo Adell's Power Surge Sustainable?

Jo Adell cranked 37 long balls last year with many key underlying metrics unchanged.

Sep 7, 2025; Anaheim, California, USA; Los Angeles Angels right fielder Jo Adell (7) is greeted by teammates after hitting a two run home run against the Athletics during the first inning at Angel Stadium. Mandatory Credit: William Liang-Imagn Images | William Liang-Imagn Images

Players have career seasons in major league baseball for a variety of reasons. Same thing for breakout seasons. In 2025 Jo Adell went on a power tear and put 37 baseballs over the fence for home runs. That is just one fewer dinger than he'd hit in his career heading in to the 2025 season.

In most previous seasons, Adell didn't have enough Major League at bats to do much damage. Called up before he was ready for The Show, Jo struggled in a myraid of ways from 2020 through 2024 with plenty of stops in AAA Salt Lake between stints in Anaheim.

But in 2024, Adell started to show some promise. He hit well over the last two months of the season and posted a wRC+ of 91 and launched 20 longballs in 451 plate appearances. That meant the kid was 9% worse than league average offensively but had pop.

Let's take a look at his 2024 metrics.

Jo Adell Metrics 2024 | https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jo-adell-666176?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

According to baseballsavant, in 2024 Adell flashed elite bat speed but failed to square up many balls or hit many in his launch angle sweet spot. His chase percentage was 29.7, with whiff and K percentages of 29.8 and 27.9, respectively. He did get a decent percentage of balls on the barrel and hit the ball somewhat harder than average.

Now look at 2025.

Jo Adell 2025 Metrics | https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jo-adell-666176?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

All that red is great stuff. Based on the underlying metrics, Adell was expected to be in the top 10% of all MLB players last season. That despite the fact the numbers on the lower half of the graph hardly moved. The chase percentage was actually up to 32.6% and the whiff and K rates were within 0.3 and 1.5 of the previous season.

But as you creep up the graph, you see some notable changes. Small at first but then they grow larger.

First there is the squared up rate. Adell improved that from 18.2% to 19.8%. Just above that is the bat speed that clicked up almost on mile per hour and is top 1% in the game. And then we get to the numbers that took a huge leap.

Adell swung and missed at the same rate, but when he made contact it was much harder.

Jo Adell was in elite company when it came to barreling up the ball in 2025. His 17.3% rate was in the top 4% of MLB. An even faster bat hitting the ball on the barrel more often put Jo in great company with a 50% hard hit rate.

No only did Jo square the ball up better and hit it harder, he did so at a good launch angle. He increased his launch angle sweet spot percentage from 30.5 to 35.1. For perspective, All World Shohei Ohtani's launch angle percentage was 35.9% last year.

Whether Adell had a career year or a breakout year in 2025 remains to be seen. It appears he's going to be a player who swings and misses a lot and walks very little. The quality of the contact he makes will dictate his success or failure.

That is a very volatile profile and one that typically comes with prolonged stretches of both good and bad. With Adell's elite bat speed he could continue to make it as a high power, low on base corner outfielder. But contact quality is unpredictable for a myriad of reasons and it is tough to count on a player with a high chase rate to continue to put up such quality contact numbers.