Veteran utility infielder Donovan Walton, who split the 2025 season between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets organizations, signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Angels.
Walton, 31, will have a chance to head back to the West Coast for the first time since 2024, when he played for the San Francisco Giants.
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Across parts of six years in Major League Baseball with the Seattle Mariners (2019-22), Giants (2022-24) and Phillies (2025), Walton has slashed .172/.223/.298 in 72 games.
Walton figures to see the bulk of his playing time come with the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate. He’s played 354 games at the Triple-A level in his career, slashing .281/.365/.435 (.800 OPS). Walton has 39 home runs and 201 RBIs at the highest level of minor league baseball.
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With the Angels, Walton has a chance to seize the utility infield role they struggled to fill with veteran reclamation projects in 2025. Kevin Newman, Tim Anderson, Chris Taylor, LaMonte Wade Jr., Scott Kingery and J.D. Davis all saw time on the Angels’ roster last year, playing 171 games and hitting a combined .186.
After playing only nine games with the Giants in 2024, Walton signed a minor league contract with the Mets in November of that year. He was assigned to Triple-A Syracuse to begin the season and slashed .222/.315/.377 in 73 games.
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The Mets never promoted Walton to their major league roster, and on July 1 he was traded to the Phillies for cash.
Walton was slashing .339/.413/.424 with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Phillies’ top farm team, when he was promoted to the big league roster on Sept. 8.
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Although he spent 16 days with the Phillies, Walton appeared in just two games. He went 1 for 8 with a single and a strikeout, then was designated for assignment and outrighted to Lehigh Valley.
Walton elected free agency after the season and needed only two months to find a new home.
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