What to Expect from Dominic Fletcher

With Corbin Carroll suffering an injury in last night's win, the Diamondbacks outfield depth got a little bit thin. With that in mind, they elected to call up outfield prospect Dominic Fletcher from Triple-A Reno. Fletcher was selected with the 75th overall pick, which was part of the Paul Goldschmidt trade, by the D-backs in the 2019 MLB Draft. The D-backs took him due to his relatively safe profile of a proven college performer who uses the whole field in his approach and can play all three outfield positions.

So far this season, Fletcher is hitting .323/.417/.559 in 109 plate appearances with Reno. He's posting a career-low 14.7% strikeout rate while maintaining his typical 9-10% walk rate that we've seen in past years. In addition, his .323 average is fueled by a .365 average on balls in play. It's unsustainably high, but Fletcher has a line drive rate of 29.5% and has a high opposite field rate of contact throughout his career.

Fletcher made his MLB debut earlier today and finished with one hit, a double, in two at-bats. It probably comes as no surprise that his first ever major league hit was a line drive to the opposite gap.

One for the shelf.

Dominic Fletcher has his first hit in the bigs! pic.twitter.com/PPyT2Ztyfq
— Bally Sports Arizona (@BALLYSPORTSAZ) April 30, 2023

The one tool were he's limited in is raw power. While Fletcher does a good job of keeping the ball off the ground, he isn't as consistent at driving the ball on air contact. His average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives sits at 88.5 MPH, around the same speed of his 88.2 MPH mark on all balls put into play. At the same time, when he does drive the ball on air contact, it translates into barrels. Fletcher's barrel rate of 10.3% is the highest of all the active Reno players I'm charting, but there are also a lot of lazy fly balls. That may be a situation where all his power comes to his pull field.

Defensively, Fletcher is better suited for a corner although he can play center field in a pinch. With Carroll down, the team was down to one player who could man center. Fletcher has made one start in left, 12 in center, and nine in right this season with Reno. He'll likely see time in right field, to help prevent a situation where Arizona has to play both Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Pavin Smith in the same outfield on an everyday basis.

With that type of skill set, Fletcher should be able to hit for a solid average (.270-.280) and on-base percentage (.330-.340) in the big leagues. Without much power, he better fits in the bottom of the order. In a good lineup, he's a good fit for the ninth spot in the batting order as a guy who is likely to reach base as the lineup turns over. Long term, I think he's a third or fourth outfielder who projects to play the left-handed half of a platoon in any of the outfield spots.

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