The Road to The Show™: Jo Adell

Each week, MiLB.com profiles an elite prospect by chronicling the steps he's taken to reach the brink of realizing his Major League dream. Here's a look at Los Angeles Angels outfielder Jo Adell. For more player journies on The Road to The Show, click here.
The Angels selected Jo Adell with the 10th overall pick in the 2017 Draft, and even though he was committed to play collegiately at Louisville, he wasted no time signing with the club. And once he hit the field, he displayed similar haste in proving himself ready for the pros.

2017 (Rookie-level Arizona League, Rookie-Advanced Orem)
The Louisville native made his professional debut in the AZL, putting up a .288/.351/.542 slash line with four homers, six triples and 21 RBIs in 31 games. That prompted an Aug. 17 bump to the Pioneer League, where he appeared in 18 contests to close out the season. He thrived with the Owlz, hitting .376/.411/.518 with a two-game stretch in which he finished a homer short of the cycle and scored five runs.
• Adell crushes first Pioneer League homer
2018 (Class A Burlington, Class A Advanced Inland Empire, Double-A Mobile)
Adell began his first full Minor League season with Class A Burlington and got off to a bit of a slow start in the Midwest League. He broke out of his shell with a four hit, eight RBI eruption on April 20 against Quad Cities. Four days later, however, he hit the Injured List with a thumb ailment that sidelined him for two weeks. The teenager returned emphatically by collecting four hits and scoring twice at South Bend.
After only 25 games with the Bees, Adell climbed to Class A Advanced Inland Empire. It was there that he spent the bulk of the season, batting .290/.345/.546 with 12 homers, 42 RBIs and 46 runs scored in 57 games. He was a model of consistency with the 66ers, logging a 10-game hitting streak before starting a 13-game run the day after the first was snapped.
• Catching up with Adell at the Futures Game
Shortly after being selected to the All-Star Futures Game, Adell took his third and final leap of the season to Double-A Mobile with just under a month left in the season. Again, he was up for the challenge, homering and scoring three runs in a sterling debut with the BayBears. He slowed a bit from there, finishing with a .238/.324/.429 line in the Southern League and a .290/.355/.543 clip for the year.
2019 (Inland Empire, Mobile, Triple-A Salt Lake)
The year got off to a bumpy star as Adell sustained hamstring and ankle injuries at Spring Training that set him back 10 weeks. After ramping up briefly with Inland Empire, he returned to Mobile at the beginning of June to begin his third professional season in earnest. He hit the ground running, batting .373/.435/.627 over his first month of action, highlighted by a four-hit, four-RBI, five-run performance in a doubleheader against Birmingham.
While he couldn't maintain that torrid pace all summer, he was nothing short of stellar in his second Southern League stint. Adell batted .308/.390/.553 with eight homers, 23 RBIs and 28 runs scored while serving as the BayBears' leadoff hitter, netting him a second straight Futures Game selection and an eventual promotion to Triple-A Salt Lake.
Adell appeared in 27 games with the Bees to end the season, posting a .264/.321/.355 line. He finished strongly, boosting his average nearly 40 points in the final week, thanks in part to a stretch in which he logged three straight three-hit games. The top Angels prospect was working on a milestone performance with two homers in the first three innings on Aug. 19 at Tacoma, but the game was rained out.
Altogether, he posted a .289/.359/.475 line across three levels.
• Adell goes yard again ... sort of

While the season came to a close for most Minor Leaguers, Adell's time on the diamond was not done, not by a long shot. His performance earned him a spot in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .273/.351/.444 with three homers, 15 runs scored and nine RBIs in 24 games. He made the roster for the Fall Stars Game and helped lead the East Division to a 4-2 win over the West.
After wrapping up in the desert, Adell again laced up his cleats as he was selected to represent the United States at the Premier12 tournament with a bid to the 2021 Olympics on the line. He was a force on the global stage, batting .394/.429/.687 with three homers and five RBIs in eight games as Team USA finished fourth in the tournament, one win shy of clinching an Olympic bid.
As the calendar flipped to 2020, Adell was set to compete for a spot on the big league roster. As a non-roster invitee to Spring Training, he hit .280/.308/.360 with two runs scored and two RBIs in nine games before Cactus League play was suspended on March 12.