by Ryan Falla, AngelsWin.com Featured Reporter

One of the more undersung prospects within the Angels system, Alberto Rios entered the 2024 season with a weight of responsibility absent from most 3^rd round picks. The lack of a true defensive home coming out of the draft saw the young star bouncing about multiple positions professionally in 2023 as Rios found himself acclimating at a professional game speed to what most have acquiesced by his age. For many this would be a tall task, yet Alberto Rios, who is already well versed in the art of learning on the fly through his time in Stanford, has proven himself more than ready for the challenge. While his early efforts this season were not immediately reflected in the numbers an end of year explosion in High A displayed the same pedigree that won Rios the PAC 12 Player of the Year award just a year ago. Now with his feet firmly under him, the coming off-season will prove monumental in his development as he prepares to travel to Australia for the 2024-2025 ABL season (November-February) as a member of the Sydney Blue Sox. Working to absorb the reps that he missed through his first two years in Stanford, there is little doubt his efforts will catapult him far beyond his MiLB peers come 2025.

“I missed 80-some games throughout the season. Instead of training this off season it was important through the organizations eyes, and mine, to go out and play. Throughout the past few years I’ve played one year at school and this first full year in professional baseball. Getting games down, getting at bats, getting game experience is the most important part in terms of my development. It just made sense in every single way.”

A major turnaround in 2024 came about after a mid-season injury took Rios off his feet for two months with the young star breaking his left hamate bone on a foul tip, essentially forcing Rios to slow down his process as he struggled to put himself where he wanted to be to open the season. Where a mid-season injury is devastating to many developing prospects, for Rios it came as a blessing in disguise as it allowed him space to slow the game down, calm his mental processes, and re-evaluate who he was, where he wanted to be, and what it would take to get there. Free from the strain of figuring that all out in the box, or behind the dish, Rios found himself returning to the field with a fresh outlook, one that would propel him far beyond his pre-injury state of play.

“In the beginning of the season I was definitely pressing, in a rush to succeed and do good right out of the gate. I feel like that put some pressure on me, trying to do too much complicated things more than they needed to be. It was about a month that I was out there [before] getting injured in May, so that was definitely a turnaround where I was like, ‘All right, let's just chill out and reassess versus trying to jump the gun or be pressed to do some stuff'. For me it was getting back to the simple stuff that I would do as a kid when I wasn't trying to overcomplicate things. I know what I have already, what got me to this position, so I was like, ‘I'm just gonna trust what I already have and change my perspective, or change my hitting thought processes a little bit.”

Returning to High A on the 30^th of July, Rios immediately flashed a new sense of self with a two hit game alongside a stolen base after not registering a base hit with the Dust Devils since the 24^th of April. Following that night Rios would register hits in all but four of his last 17 games, eventually finishing the season with a .333/.412/.383 slash line and 7 RBIs alongside 6 runs scored across 68 PAs. This late season explosion is reflective of his time at Stanford that led to his high draft position after an intense late-career bloom that saw him swing his way towards the 2023 PAC-12 Player of the Year, an award that has gone to the likes of Adley Rustchman in the past (2019), or more recently Travis Bazzana (#1 overall pick 2024). The offensive ceiling of Alberto Rios is still quite underrated even with his end of season boom, though another run at Spring Training and a full year of play should see him fill out every bit of that stock that saw him come into the Angels as the highly vaunted Player of the Year.

“Defensively I went to the chalkboard to reassess; look myself in the mirror into what I wanted to be and what work we needed to get there. When I was out in Arizona looking through video at guys in the big league level, that helped out so much in terms of my development. Seeing what they do and mimicking that, what might work for them might work for me. Doing that and getting some reps out in Arizona helped out a ton. As the season progressed I definitely felt that.”

Not only did Rios’ offense finds its form over the course of the long season, his defense steadily found its way home behind the dish. While he did take all of his initial Rookie Ball/Low A innings in the outfield Rios entered the 2023 offseason with the organizational goal of fitting in at catcher, seeing the young standout take extensive work in Arizona behind the plate that offseason. This year saw Rios settling into his position of the future with 131 innings behind the plate following a .993 fielding percentage, and while more reps are wanted to see him truly evolve into Major League form Rios will see that extra work this fall in the ABL. That extra ground work should see him hit the ground running come Spring Training 2025, and into the full season following. A superhuman dedication is required to burst through the Minor Leagues and onto a Major League roster, and seeing Rios accept the responsibility of a full calendar year of baseball inspires greatly in his future as a MLB standout. The Angels prospect hype train may be focused on other names as of now, but come 2025 the freight train that is Alberto Rios will seem as if it came out of nowhere, not because it has, but because the quiet work he’s done behind the scenes will finally show itself in a major way, just as it has over the last two months of the 2024 season. By end of 2025 it won’t just be Angel fans who are reminded of Alberto Rios ability as a former a PAC 12 PotY, but the entirety of the baseball world. Once that day comes it will be Angel fans who will have the honor of celebrating the blossoming future of our franchise hopes thanks to the likes of Alberto Rios and company.