David Fletcher

David Owen Fletcher (born May 31, 1994) is an American professional baseball infielder in the Atlanta Braves organization.

He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Angels.

Fletcher was born in Orange, California, and attended Cypress High School in Cypress, California.

After four varsity seasons with Cypress, Fletcher played two seasons of college baseball for Loyola Marymount University.

David Owen Fletcher was born on May 31, 1994, in Orange, California.

He is the son of Tim Fletcher, a former college football player for Saddleback College, construction worker, and army veteran, and Fernanda Fletcher, a professional dancer.

Fletcher showed interest in baseball from a young age, playing soft toss at age four with Angels infielder Gary DiSarcina at a fan appreciation event.

At age 13, Fletcher first trained with Stan Grebeck, a baseball coach and brother of former major leaguer Craig Grebeck.

Grebeck took note of Fletcher's quick release on defense and predicted that he would eventually play in the major leagues.

Fletcher continued to work with Grebeck, evolving his swing and training to hit high fastballs.

Fletcher attended Cypress High School in Cypress, California.

He finished his sophomore season batting .317 with 15 runs batted in (RBI).

In his junior season, Fletcher was named by The Orange County Register as a top high school athlete in the county to watch in 2012, alongside Tyler Mahle.

Through early April, he was batting .429 as Cypress's leadoff hitter with 10 stolen bases in 13 attempts.

Fletcher finished his junior season batting .422 with a team-best 46 hits and only one strikeout in 119 plate appearances.

Fletcher was selected to the Register's all-county second team, sharing honors with James Kaprielian, Jacob Nix, Tyler Mahle, and Ryan McMahon.

In 2013, his senior year, Fletcher batted .437, aiding Cypress in winning the CIF Southern Section (CIF-SS) Division 2 championship.

Following the season, he was named to the Register's all-county first team, the Los Angeles Times High School All-Star baseball team, and was named the CIF-SS Division 2 MVP.

After graduating from high school in 2013, Fletcher enrolled at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and became a member of the LMU Lions baseball team of the West Coast Conference (WCC), beginning in the 2014 season.

Fletcher chose to attend LMU over UC Irvine and UCLA.

Prior to his first season with the Lions, he made his collegiate summer baseball debut with the Alaska Goldpanners of the Alaska Baseball League.

In 35 games with the Goldpanners, Fletcher batted .246 with 15 RBIs and 20 stolen bases in 25 attempts.

In 2014, Fletcher's freshman year, he batted .329 with 28 RBIs and 17 stolen bases (21 attempts) in 56 games.

After the season, he was honored by Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) with freshman All-American team selections.

Fletcher was also named to the All-WCC first team and was named the WCC Defensive Player of the Year.

In the summer of 2014, Fletcher played with the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL), joining Bobby Dalbec, Jake Cronenworth, and Taylor Ward on the roster.

In 41 games with Orleans, Fletcher batted .299 with 17 RBIs and seven stolen bases (eight attempts).

He was named a CCBL All-Star.

He was drafted by the Angels in the sixth round of the 2015 MLB draft.

In 2015, as a sophomore, Fletcher batted .308 with two home runs, 27 RBIs, and 14 stolen bases (17 attempts) in 55 games.

He was named to the All-WCC first team for the second consecutive season and was selected as LMU's Male Athlete of the Year.

While at LMU, Fletcher was majoring in psychology.

Fletcher was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in the sixth round of the 2015 Major League Baseball draft, the 195th overall pick.

Fletcher was one of six players from LMU taken in the 2015 draft and the earliest selection among the group.

Fletcher had two years of collegiate eligibility remaining but ultimately signed with the Angels for a $406,900 bonus, a $178,800 over-slot signing.

He made his MLB debut in 2018 and served as a utility player for his first three seasons before becoming a more permanent middle infielder in 2021.

Considered a contact hitter, Fletcher frequently served as the leadoff batter in front of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani with the Angels.

He is known for his soft-contact bloop hits and frequent contact, resulting in a low amount of walks and strikeouts.

In his first three full seasons with the Angels, Fletcher led the team in hits.

His 26-game hitting streak in 2021 was the longest in MLB that year and the second-longest in Angels history, behind Garret Anderson's 28.