Shortstop Yilver De Paula made waves within the Angels organization with a loud, albeit brief, stint in the Dominican Summer League last year.<\/p>\n
He reached base in 21 of his 40 plate appearances over 10 games before he injured his left shoulder diving for a ball and had season-ending surgery.<\/p>\n
Offseason strength gains became a focus De Paula, who signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2025. That work helped produce immediate results for the 18-year-old in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League this season.<\/p>\n
Through 30 games, De Paula batted .277\/.349\/.482 with three home runs and 10 doubles, though that came with an 0-for-5 showing on the bases.<\/p>\n
\u201c(De Paula) put in a lot of work over the winter with some of the strength gains, which in turn you\u2019ve seen his ability to impact the baseball,\u201d Angels assistant GM Joey Prebynski said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been very pleased with how it\u2019s carried over into games and how he\u2019s been able to do more damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally signed as a glove-first, switch-hitting shortstop with speed and athleticism, De Paula has opened eyes with his hitting progress. As an added bonus, he had produced against both righthanded and lefthanded pitchers in a small sample.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with any younger player, there\u2019s a little bit of an adjustment period when they first come over to the States for the first time,\u201d Prebynski said, \u201cbut we\u2019ve certainly been pleased with Yilver . . .<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a switch-hitting shortstop with a plus hit tool, plus speed and the ability to impact games offensively and defensively. We\u2019ve been really pleased with how he\u2019s experienced more game situations and, ultimately, how he\u2019s started to find a little more consistency in how he performs.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Paula\u2019s performance paired with physical tools have fostered optimism in the organization, bringing to mind the trajectory of outfielder Hayden Alvarez last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cYilver will determine that,\u201d Prebynski said, \u201cHe\u2019s certainly made a lot of positive steps since he played last year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shortstop Yilver De Paula made waves within the Angels organization with a loud, albeit brief, stint in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,66547],"class_list":["post-362039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-organization-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}