JUPITER, Fla. – He was officially listed on his Perfect Game player profile page as Jordon "Jo" Adell not all that long ago, back when he was patrolling the outfield and glaring menacingly out at pitchers from the batter's box while playing for the powerhouse EvoShield Canes in the mid-2010s.
Today, he’s dropped the full first name “Jordon” altogether and just goes by Jo. Baseball fans also know him as a former first-round draft pick of the L.A. Angels who has enjoyed a fair amount of time on the big-league roster over the last two seasons as he continues to battle for playing time at the big league level.
On Thursday, the 2016 PG All-American returned to his roots, hanging out with the Canes’ Jeff Petty and current members of the Canes National/New York Mets Scout Team who are battling for another title at the PG WWBA World Championship, aka “Jupiter.”
Adell played with the EvoShield Canes at the 2016 WWBA World Championship and earned all-tournament recognition for a club that advanced to the second round of playoffs. He was thrilled to have the opportunity to be back at the Roger Dean Complex this week.
“I was talking to the boys this morning before we headed out to practice and I told them that this was one of those tournaments for me that really brought out the competitiveness and the idea of winning,” the amiable Adell told PG, speaking from the Marlins quad at Roger Dean. “It’s really in a tournament like this with the scouts and the amount of people that show up and watch these guys to get caught up in individual performance.
“The Canes organization, ever since I was playing with them, they’ve been one that’s about winning by creating the right type of team and putting the right type of guys together to really come out and compete and work for something that’s bigger than individual things.”
Jordon "Jo" Adell participated in 16 PG events from 2013-16 and earned all-tournament recognition eight times while also being included on the Top Prospect List at both the 2015 PG Junior National Showcase and the 2016 PG National Showcase.
His performance at the National earned him an invitation to the 2016 PG All-American Classic where he was joined on the Petco Park field by Shane Baz, Luis Campusano, Hans Crouse, Trevor Rogers and Ryan Vilade, 2016 PGAAs who have also made their major league debuts. Adell's Angels teammate, the right-hander Dylan Bundy was at the 2011 PG All-American Classic.
“Looking back now, you really value the competitive atmosphere,” Adell said of his PG experiences. “Sometimes in professional ball it’s kind of easy to get lost with a little bit of that but with these guys and their youthfulness and their energy level coming out here, it really just kind of brought back that fire and that (drive) to win that I remember from travel ball.”
The Angels selected Adell with the No. 10 overall pick of the first round in the 2017 MLB Amateur Draft right out of Ballard High School in Louisville. He signed his first professional contract that summer and has spent all or parts of four seasons in the minor leagues, making his major league debut on Aug. 4, 2020.
Adell has now played in 73 big-league games over the last two seasons, slashing .205/.255/.339 with 20 doubles, two triples, seven home runs and 33 RBI in parttime duty. No one ever said this was going to be easy.
In reality, the 22-year-old Adell was always on somewhat of a fast track. He was in Double-A after his first two minor league seasons, jumped up to Triple-A in 2019 and made his major league debut on Aug. 4, 2020, at age 21.
The Angels had told him they were prepared to move him through their farm system as rapidly as possible if he showed he could handle each new level and that’s exactly what happened. It was one of those deals where he told himself to buckle-up and be ready to compete at the highest level, and he went to work.
“It didn’t go completely the way I wanted it to and I think a lot of the guys that are in my position as young players that have come up for the first time, that’s what you see,” Adell said. “It’s difficult; it’s a different type of game. … “The road is always up and down in this game and that’s why I talk to these guys about really trying to stay even-keel.
“There’s going to be a lot of games (played) and they’re going to be great and they’re going to be bad and as long as you can find that middle-ground, it’ll be good.”
Jo Adell is also in a pretty special position in terms of his workplace, sharing a clubhouse and dugout with superstars like Mike Trout ad Shohei Ohtani. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.
“It’s awesome; you get to really learn by watching and I think that’s the big thing,” Adell said. “You have future hall-of-famers that are in that clubhouse along with players we had never seen before in Shohei Ohtani; a lot of these guys wanted to know about that today.
“But you learn a lot,” he added. “You learn the discipline of a routine and the discipline of competing and never giving a pitch up in the batters’ box. You really just try to imitate how they approach the game.”
At the same time, Adell said, he tells these young players how important it is to remain true to themselves. Don’t try to be anyone other than yourself and don't waver from that approach moving forward while also picking up valuable bits and pieces of information along the way.
And then someday, when you find yourself on a big league roster, you can return to Jupiter and pass on what you’ve learned to the younger guys trying to follow in your footsteps.
“It’s pretty great to really be a part of it and see all the coaches that coached me when I was coming through,” Adell said. “This is an awesome event and it always has been and I’m glad I’m able to come down and spend a couple of days here.”