Scott Fletcher

Middle infielder Scott Fletcher was picked four times in the major-league amateur draft, the last three of those in the first round. He finally signed in June 1979 after his fourth selection. Less than two years later, he was in the major leagues.

From 1981 through 1995, Fletcher played in 1,612 big-league games for six different teams. He played shortstop in 839 games and second base in 729, with several dozen at third base and one at first base. His career batting average was a solid .262, with a .332 on-base percentage, 510 runs batted in, and 688 runs scored. In a SABR oral history session conducted with Fletcher, Mark Liptak observed that he was a steady glove man – he “holds the highest all-time MLB fielding percentage for any second baseman that played over 650 games at that position.”1

After retirement, he kept active in the game by working in a variety of coaching and managerial positions, and as both a hitting coordinator and infield coordinator. 

Fletcher has baseball in his family. Indeed, when he was born in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, on July 30, 1958, his father – Richard W. Fletcher – worked with the Fort Walton Beach Jets, the Class-D Alabama–Florida League affiliate of the Washington Senators.2 Dick Fletcher had been a right-handed minor-league pitcher from 1955-1959, his best year being with the same league’s Pensacola Dons in 1957. He was 13-9 with a 4.20 ERA, striking out 117 in 148 innings.

Scott’s mother – Helen (Bobbi) Fletcher (née Jones) – helped raise him and his brother, Richard. She and Dick Fletcher were married for 67 years until Dick’s passing in 2021. “My mom was a nurse,” Scott explained in an October 2025 interview. “She worked with the Visiting Nurse Service for a long time. She became a visiting nurse coordinator at the hospital, but she worked as a visiting nurse for a long, long time.”3

Dick Fletcher worked in insurance, “but most of his time he was coaching. He coached at the high school level and at the college level. He coached some at Akron University, football and baseball. At West Branch High School, he coached football and baseball – and he was the head coach at Highland High School and coached football there.”

Scott played both Little League and American Legion ball as a youngster and some semipro ball for Akron Insulation in the Greater Akron AA League. He graduated from Wadsworth High School in Wadsworth, Ohio, in 1976. “I have great memories of Wadsworth,” he recalled in 2015. “It was a great community when I was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s.” Of playing youth baseball, he recalled, “We used to go up in the summertime and play all the time. I’d play with my brother and our friends at Durling Park, Overlook School, Miller Field – all those places bring back a lot of memories.” Dick Fletcher was still active in the Akron AA League, and Scott said, “My brother and I would always go with him to the various parks where he’d play. In Wadsworth, I … had access to all the parks.”4

Fletcher was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 35th round of the June 1976 draft but chose not to sign. He enrolled at the University of Toledo for a year, then transferred to Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida. Fletcher became a first-round pick in the January 1978 Secondary Phase of the draft, selected by the Oakland A’s. Again, he did not sign, nor did he when the Houston Astros made him the fifth pick in the country in the first round of the June 1978 Secondary Phase draft. He had earned that first-round attention after batting .406 with 42 stolen bases and being voted Florida Junior College Player of the Year. 

Fletcher recounted his dealings with the A’s and Astros. “When I went to junior college, I was drafted by Oakland. I think it was the time that they were thinking about moving. Things were in a little disarray. They didn’t really ever make an offer, so that wasn’t much of a decision. In June, Houston drafted me, but…you know…the amount of money…it just wasn’t right. I told them what I wanted, and they weren’t willing to do it.”

Instead, Fletcher moved on to Georgia Southern University at Statesboro. “I had a chance to go on to a really good school and play for a good coach there – Jack Stallings.” At Georgia Southern, he also met his wife-to-be, Angie Bellamy. “She was the bat girl for the baseball team, but she was an athletic girl as well. Actually, I just saw her on campus and the first time I saw her, I thought. ‘Man, I’d like to marry a girl like that.’ The second time I saw her, I said, ‘I’m going to marry that girl. (laughs)” Their wedding came in 1984, and Fletcher reported in 2025, “We’ve been married 41 years. She’s great. She’s the best.”

In 1979, he hit .413 and was named to the All-Regional Tournament team and as shortstop on The Sporting News’ College All-American second team. The Chicago Cubs selected him in the first round of the Secondary Phase that June, the sixth pick overall. This time, he signed with scout Bob Hartsfield just before turning 21. 

The Cubs placed him in the New York-Penn League with their short-season Class-A affiliate, the Geneva Cubs. Older brother Rick Fletcher, a middle infielder in the same league that summer, played for the Auburn Red Stars (an unaffiliated club). However, Rick hit just .146 in what was his only season in professional baseball.  

In Scott’s first game, on June 19, he hit a grand slam in his first at-bat – actually, his second plate appearance. Not seeing pitches to his liking, he had drawn a base on balls his first time up.5 Just about a month later, on July 15, he set a league record with seven hits in seven at-bats as Geneva crushed Utica, 29-4. Fletcher drove in eight runs in the game, with a homer, four doubles, and two singles.6 He played shortstop in 67 games, hitting .310 and driving in 43 runs.

For 1980, he was promoted to the Double-A Texas League, where he played for the Midland Cubs. He appeared in 130 games at second base, while batting .327, scoring a league-leading 111 runs, and driving in 65.

Fletcher got his first taste of major-league ball in 1981, debuting at Wrigley Field on April 25 against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies. In his fourth time at bat, he singled off reliever Sparky Lyle. His first RBI came the following day, when he hit a first-inning double off the Phils’ Marty Bystrom that drove in teammate Iván de Jesús. He appeared in 10 late April/early May games, mostly at second base, but was then sent to the Triple-A Iowa Oaks after Joe Strain came off the disabled list. He played in 119 games, batting .255, and was recalled to the majors on September 1. In nine more games for Chicago, he pinch-ran and booked another 12 plate appearances, finishing the year with a .217 average.

The 1982 season provided another brief taste of big-league ball (11 games, .167 average), but was mostly spent with the Iowa Cubs, for whom he hit .313 in 129 games.

In late January 1983, Fletcher moved from the North Side to the South Side when the Cubs traded him to the White Sox as part of a six-player deal.7 Fletcher spent the full 1983 season with the White Sox; he appeared in 114 games, 100 of them at shortstop. In what was officially his rookie year, he hit .237, with a .315 on-base percentage, 31 RBIs, and 42 runs scored. He had a .965 fielding percentage, leading the American League in Range Factor per nine innings. Fletcher talked at length about the 1983 season with Mark Liptak– notably, the importance of the confidence manager Tony La Russa had in him despite a rough start on defense (nine errors in April).8

On June 26, 1983, he hit the first of his 34 career home runs in the majors. It was a solo shot at Comiskey Park against reliever Len Whitehouse of the Minnesota Twins in a game which the White Sox won, 9-7. Fletcher drove in three runs that afternoon, including one with a triple and another with a single in addition to the homer.

With 99 wins, the White Sox finished first in the American League West but were eliminated in the American League Championship Series, three games to one, by the Baltimore Orioles. Fletcher played error-free shortstop in the first three games but was 0-for-7 at the plate, with a sacrifice and walk in the first game. Jerry Dybzinski played short in the fourth and final game.

That was Fletcher’s only time in postseason play. “When you look back,” he told Liptak, “you just don’t realize how fortunate you are just to get into the playoffs; in all my years that was the only time I ever made it. I was a rookie and thought I’d get another chance, but I never did. Then we saw Baltimore just beat up on the Phillies, and I know we would have won the World Series.”9

In 1984, Fletcher was the first-string shortstop for the White Sox, as he played in 149 games and batted .250 (.328 OBP). With the arrival of flashy Ozzie Guillén, who became AL Rookie of the Year in 1985, Fletcher split his time among third base, shortstop, and second base in 1985. In 119 games, he batted .256 (.332 OBP). The White Sox finished fifth in 1984 and third in 1985. 

In November 1985, Fletcher was part of a five-player trade with the Texas Rangers. He had a strong season in 1986, when he batted an even .300 for the second-place Rangers and drove in 50 runs. His 1987 season saw a slight drop in batting average (.287) but a significant increase in RBIs (63). The Rangers, though, finished in sixth place. Fletcher, primarily playing shortstop, averaged more than 147 games per year in three full seasons with Texas. In 1988, he dipped to .276 with 47 RBIs.

After the season, he became a free agent but wound up signing again with Texas – reportedly a three-year deal for $3.9 million, the most the Rangers ever had paid for a player. The Sporting News said although Fletcher was seen as “a hard-nosed competitor,” he “has never particularly distinguished himself” – yet The Sporting News also dubbed him “solid defensively” and second among league shortstops. Rangers GM Tom Grieve offered praise: “Scott is a player who always gives you 100 percent effort. He has performed admirably, has been a good team player and is being rewarded for that effort. Hopefully this delivers a message to our players and also to the fans that we will hang on to our players.”10 He was also seen as “durable…he plays every day” (by third baseman Steve Buechele) and “the kind of guy you’d want your daughter to marry” (by former teammate Tom Paciorek).11

Though he was a .271 career hitter at the time, it was noted “that average climbs to .297 with runners on base and .312 with men in scoring position.”12

Just before the trading deadline in 1989, after hitting only .239 in 83 games, he was dealt back to the White Sox with Wilson Álvarez and Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique. It had been a very difficult stretch, particularly because his wife, Angie, had a non-malignant thyroid tumor removed just before spring training. Her mother had suffered from a malignant thyroid tumor.

Fletcher’s hitting picked up over his next 59 games, to .272. With the White Sox, he almost exclusively played second base – Ozzie Guillén was entrenched as the shortstop. They were a good tandem: notably, Fletcher worked in 151 games in 1990 (all at second base) and led the majors by taking part in 115 double plays. He had a .304 on-base percentage and drove in 56 runs. The team won 94 games but came in second in the AL West to the 103-59 Oakland Athletics. It was the final year the team played at the original Comiskey Park.

Fletcher started 1991 strongly, batting .333 at the end of April, but by the end of May he was down to .226. At the close of June he had dropped to .199. He appeared in 90 games – Joey Cora was given an increasing share of starts at second – and finished with a .206 average and only 28 RBIs.

Fletcher was a free agent again, and the Milwaukee Brewers were interested, especially because incumbent shortstop Bill Spiers was recovering from back surgery. The Brewers initially invited Fletcher to spring training as a non-roster player; they signed him in the latter part of February to a one-year deal. He opened the season as the starting shortstop but wound up playing 106 games at second base and just 22 at short. He rebounded at the plate and hit .275, driving in 51 runs. The Brewers finished in second place.

The Boston Red Sox had lost second baseman Jody Reed to the Colorado Rockies in the expansion draft, so they signed Fletcher in December 1992 to fill that need. He always had maintained a good on-base percentage (.335 in 1992) and remained steady in the field at second. He signed a two-year contract for $1.2 million.13 In 1993, he bumped up both his batting average (to .285) and his OBP (to .341).

A couple of events cut Fletcher’s season short. He played in 29 games (batting .263) through May 21, then was out for a month with right hamstring problems; he returned on June 20. Though his average declined to .227, he committed only one error all year in 282 chances. After August 10, he was done for the year as major-league players went on strike. He declined an assignment to the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox.

Just one season remained for Scott Fletcher as a big-league player. It began as he signed with the Detroit Tigers on April 24, 1995. Both members of Detroit’s long-running double play combo – second baseman Lou Whitaker and shortstop Alan Trammell – were on the disabled list at the time. Fletcher eventually got into 63 games at second base, the same number as Whitaker, in his last season (the latter appeared in 84 games overall). Fletcher himself went on the DL in June. For the season, he hit .231, got on base at a .312 pace, and drove in 17.

As of January 1996, it was rumored that Fletcher, a free agent, might wind up with either the Braves or the Mets.14 No deal materialized, though, so that June he entered the coaching ranks as a roving instructor for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The new expansion franchise was preparing for its initial big-league season in 1998. He was named manager for the Charleston (South Carolina) River Dogs (South Atlantic League) for 1997. “I think I’m going to enjoy it,” he said ahead of the assignment. “[Managing is] something I’ve wanted to do, and I’m happy to get the opportunity.” Minor-league field coordinator Tom Foley added, “He is good with the kids, and he’s a hard worker.”15 

For several years (1999-2004), he served as an assistant coach with Emory University in Atlanta. In 2000, Emory reached the Division III College World Series for the first time. The next year, the Eagles were ranked No. 1 nationally in Division III regular-season play. Fletcher was instrumental in these achievements.

In time, he decided to seek another role. “My kids were growing up,” he said. “I just had enough. I wanted to be home seeing them grow instead of always traveling. You eventually get to that point in your life.”16 

The Fletchers had three children. Brittany was born in 1987, Brian in 1988, and Brooke in 1992. All grew up with baseball as a big part of their lives.

• Brian, an All-American at Auburn, was selected by the Houston Astrosin the 39th round of the 2007 amateur draft. He played six seasons of minor-league ball, primarily as an outfielder, rising as high as Triple A with the Kansas City Royals in 2013 and 2014. 
• Brittany married Gordon Beckham, an infielder who spent the first seven of his 11 seasons (2009-19) of major-league ball with the White Sox.
• Brooke became the sideline reporter for Chicago Sports Network in 2025 and works as part of the team covering White Sox games. She previously had worked for ESPN and Bally Sports Detroit. In 2025 she married Jake Cronenworth, an infielder for the San Diego Padres since 2020.

In 2002, Scott Fletcher co-founded Rightview Pro LLC, which provides a “training system for baseball and softball combining a state-of-the-art video analysis system.” Going deeper, he described it as “a system that enables someone, a parent or a coach for example, to insert video of their child or player swinging and to compare it with video in the program of some of the top major league players. You can see side by side how your player compares to, say, Manny Ramirez. You can use it to check the mechanics and make adjustments as needed.” He ran RVP for 18 years. The next year, he launched Fletcher Baseball, LLC, which he ran through 2009.

Fletcher became a roving instructor with the Colorado Rockies and then infield coordinator beginning in 2009.

In October 2011, the Atlanta Braves hired Fletcher to play a “hybrid role as assistant hitting coach – a new position for the Braves – and advance scout.”17 He worked on the major-league staff under manager Fredi González as assistant to hitting coach Greg Walker – an old teammate with the White Sox – from 2012 through 2014. After the 2014 season, he resigned.

Beginning in January 2015, Fletcher worked as a roving minor-league infield coordinator for the Tigers. He held this position for nearly six years, until November 2020. In January 2018, his duties with the organization expanded to include minor-league hitting coordinator. As he described the work on his LinkedIn profile, he “logistically managed player development programs over 25 team members and 8 staff members.” He “evaluated, graded skills and abilities of employees and implemented programs” developing skills of employee personnel and coordinating daily workout programs.

Starting in June 2021, Fletcher worked in Korea for the SSG Landers team in Incheon as the KBO team’s hitting and infield defense coordinator. Beginning in 2022, he became the general manager for the franchise’s second team (essentially their minor-league team) and oversaw the work on defense and baserunning. “I helped develop their minor-league system over there. I went over there for five months and trained their hitting coach and infield coach – how to identify flaws and fix them, and things like that. Talked to them a lot about fielding and hitting. I came back for seven weeks and then went back for 10 more months to help develop players.”

“The last couple of years,” he said in October 2025, “I’ve been assistant athletic director of Landmark Christian School, here in Fairburn, Georgia. I do a lot of things here. I’m the director of baseball and director of softball, and coach the teams.” He also works with corporate sponsors to help the school raise funds.

Scott Fletcher lost both his brother and his father to COVID in 2021, within three weeks of each other. He agreed that his father derived great satisfaction from seeing so much baseball in the family. “He loved watching all the games. He’d watch myself, and he’d watch Gordon [Beckham]. He loved watching Brian play – in college and when he was in pro ball. Yeah, it was good. He enjoyed that a lot.”

As for his own playing career, he says: “I had the opportunity to play with a lot of great players – and to play against a lot of great players. Naturally, I think the “Winning Ugly” White Sox team [1983] was kind of special. We won the division by 20 games. That was a special time.”

Last revised: February 5, 2026

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Scott Fletcher for an interview on October 24, 2025.

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Mike Eisenbath and fact-checked by Don Zminda.

Photo credit: Scott Fletcher, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Mark Liptak, 2004 oral history of Scott Fletcher at  https://sabr.org/interview/scott-fletcher-2004/. SABR researcher Don Zminda, using the 650-game criterion researched Fletcher on Baseball-Reference.com and finds he currently stands as fifth all-time, behind Placido Polanco, Dustin Pedroia, Mark Ellis, and DJ LeMahieu (through 2024).

2 Richard Fletcher filled in as manager for a day or two in June, the month before Scott was born. Pensacola News-Journal, June 4, 1958: 13.

3 Author interview with Scott Fletcher on October 24, 2025. Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations attributed to Scott Fletcher come from this interview.

4 Joe Jastrzemski, “Scott Fletcher, from Grizzly shortstop to MLB,” Wadsworth Community Radio.com, October 19, 2015. https://wadsworthcommunityradio.com/scott-fletcher-from-grizzly-shortstop-to-mlb/

5 Associated Press, “Geneva Cubs Romp in Opener,” Utica Observer-Dispatch, June 20, 1979: 20.

6 “Geneva pounds Blue Jays, 29-4,” Utica Daily Press, July 16, 1979: 15.

7 On January 26, 1983,the Cubs traded him with Randy Martz, Pat Tabler, and Dick Tidrow to the White Sox for Warren Brusstar and Steve Trout.

8 Liptak oral history.

9 Liptak oral history.

10 Phil Rogers, “Fletcher’s $3.975 Million Sets Record,” The Sporting News, December 12, 1988.

11 Steve Campbell, “In short, a winner,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 9,1989.

12 Campbell.

13 Associated Press, “Red Sox sign infielder Fletcher,” Oneonta Star, December 2, 1992.

14 Ben Walker, “Some top stars wondering where they’ll report this spring,” Associated Press, Anderson (South Carolina) Independent-Mail, January 21, 1996: 8D.

15 Mark Topkin, “Scott Fletcher happy to take minor strides,” Tampa Bay Times, October 13, 1996: 45.

16 Liptak oral history.

17 David O’Brien, “Walker hired as Braves hitting coach,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 21, 2011.