Several players made their presence felt in Arizona Fall League action during Week 5, and with Fall Star Weekend right around the corner, the stat leaders are starting to separate themselves.
Welbyn Francisco of the Guardians keeps showing up near the top of the board. He enters the final stretch leading the AFL in batting average at .419, along with a 1.198 OPS, 31 hits and 28 RBIs.
On the mound, Briggs McKenzie, who leads the league in innings with 20 2/3, also took another step forward in his latest outing. With one week left, there’s still time for one last push to grab attention.
One of the loudest weeks belonged to Anderson, who hit .455/.647/.727 and walked more often than he struck out, six times to five. Boston’s 2023 third-round pick already had momentum coming in after a solid regular season at High-A Greenville, where he hit nine homers and posted an .826 OPS.
He’s carried that power into Arizona, where he has three homers in 15 games for Mesa. Anderson now ranks fourth in the AFL with 20 RBIs and is one of nine players in game action with an OPS above 1.000.
Zion Rose of Surprise put together a big all-around week, going 6-for-14 with six runs, a double, a triple, a homer, seven RBIs, five walks, three strikeouts and six stolen bases. No one drove in more runs than Rose this week, and he did plenty of damage with the bat in other ways too, as half of his hits went for extra bases. The 21-year-old also kept getting on base, sitting sixth in the AFL with a .494 OBP and matching his walks and strikeouts.
Nori’s trip out west is starting to turn heads as well. The outfielder delivered a productive week in a busy Surprise lineup that also includes Phillies teammate Aidan Miller, who leads the AFL in walks. Nori and Miller are both making noise as the league enters its final stretch.
Welbyn Francisca, listed here as an infielder for Surprise, continued his strong fall with a 7-for-19 week that included six runs, a triple, a homer, six RBIs, three walks, four strikeouts and two stolen bases. He was the Week 1 Player of the Week and hasn’t cooled off since, going deep for the fourth time in 16 Fall League games. Francisca has been one of the most productive hitters in the desert and sits near the top of multiple leaderboards.
Jake Munroe of Mesa also kept building his case. The Angels’ No. 20 prospect went 5-for-13 with four runs, a double, four RBIs, three walks, four strikeouts and a stolen base. He now owns a .903 OPS for the fall and has more walks than strikeouts, extending the on-base skills he showed during the regular season, when he posted a .402 OBP in 2026.
The week also belonged to Williams on the mound. He dominated Wednesday against Surprise, striking out double digits while giving up just one hit.
Williams had only one other start in 2026 with 10 strikeouts, and that came on April 22 for Double-A Pensacola. Through 14 innings with Glendale, he has an 11.6 K/9.
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One area that could look very different is the clubs approach to Japanese players, where recent performance in Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB has only increased the intrigue. The Angels are being linked in speculation to a few possible targets who could fit both immediate needs and longer-term ambition, but for now it remains more of a projection than a promise. Still, if the front office does decide to chase that market aggressively, it could change the way the Angels are viewed in the race for international talent. [Read more 🡒]