The Los Angeles Angels are once again the Bad News Bears of Major League Baseball, but salvation might only be a few short years away.
Juan Cespedes, a 17-year-old prospect in the Angels organization, made headlines on Saturday with a generational feat on the basepaths. While playing in the Dominican Summer League (DSL), Cespedes stole a whopping eight bases in a single game.
Per the official Angels Player Development page on X, that is the highest-single game total in all of recorded Major or Minor League Baseball history. Here is the footage of all eight of Cespedes’ steals from the game.
Angels prospect Juan Cespedes steals 8 bases in a single game for the DSL Angels pic.twitter.com/eG1oa8tPID
— AngelsMiLB (@AngelsMiLB) June 20, 2026
Cespedes is a 5-foot-10 shortstop who bats lefty. He signed a minor-league contract with the Angels in January of this year and is now playing at the rookie-league level in the DSL.
Overall on the year, Cespedes now has 25 stolen bases and just two times caught stealing through 13 total games in the DSL. He is also batting .395 with an impressive .974 OPS over that span.
While the inherently incomplete nature of game-by-game Minor League scorekeeping makes it virtually impossible to know definitively whether Cespedes actually set an all-time record, his single-game accomplishment this week is no less impressive. The MLB Angels may be continuing to create new lows for themselves this season, but some reinforcements might be on the way in the form of the teenage phenom Cespedes (at least come 2030 or so).
