From black belt to home runs
NWL: Canadians’ Adams can do it all, but has ‘a lot of things to work on’ as catcher
Riley Adams’ life story currently meshes a little of Bull Durham and The Karate Kid. The first foray into sports for the Vancouver Canadians catcher was in martial arts when he was just three. He practised karate for a decade, earning a second-degree black belt. For the past eight years or so, he’s been focused on banishing lazy fastballs into the horizon, but he thinks he could be up to speed quickly again with his initial athletic pursuit if need be.
“Obviously there a few of the forms that you’d have to get back to, but it’s doable,” said Adams, 21, a thirdround draft pick of the Toronto Blue Jays last month out of the University of San Diego Toreros program. “The biggest thing that translated from karate to other sports is the obedience. Karate places a huge value on that. You have a master that you listen to, and that’s really helped me to work with coaches in baseball.”
His coaches have found the now 6-foot-4, 225-pound right-handed hitter easy to like for some time. Baseball America had Adams, then a high school senior at San Diego’s Canyon Crest Academy, ranked No. 154 on their top-500 list for the 2014 draft. Big league clubs felt they couldn’t entice him out of his commitment to USD, and the Chicago Cubs ended up taking a flyer on him that June with a 37th round selection, or pick No. 1,099. He opted for the NCAA route, and over three seasons hit .305, with 24 home runs and 110 RBI, for the Toreros in 159 games.
Baseball America slotted him at No. 72 on this year’s top-500 list. The Blue Jays took him at No. 99 and gave him a US$542,400 signing bonus.
Offence is writing his ticket. But defence has some apparently concerned. Baseball America, for instance, stated in their pre-draft scouting report on Adams that his “receiving and blocking are well below-average and need significant work,” and that “some evaluators believe those skills can improve to be adequate in the context of everything else Adams provides, but others think he will eventually have to move positions, either to first base or an outfield corner.”
Keep in mind that the Blue Jays also drafted a catcher in the second round last month, grabbing Hagen Danner, a high school senior out of Huntington Beach, Calif. Danner, 18, is with the Gulf Coast League Blue Jays, one of Toronto’s rookie league teams, one level below the C’s, who are members of the short-season, single-A Northwest League.
Adams himself admits that he has “a lot of things to work on from the catching side.” But he’s adamant that he wants to stay at catcher.
“This is my first time really calling games,” explained Adams, who had considerable help from the dugout on such things at USD, like the majority of college catchers do. “I’m working on understanding my pitchers. That’s the biggest thing I’m trying to learn and get better at.
“That’s what’s making catching fun for me — that mental side and understanding the game within the game. There’s a lot to think about it. There’s a lot I need to work on, but it’s also something that interests me.
“I heard going into the draft coming out of high school that the catching was advanced and the bat wasn’t so much. In college, the bat picked up and the catching didn’t really develop all the way.”
Adams has done some work with Ken Huckaby, the Blue Jays catching coordinator, and believes he’s improved significantly already.
“He hasn’t tried to change anything mechanically. It’s about how I think,” Adams said.
Adams was hitting .407, with one homer and 14 RBI, through his first 14 games with Vancouver. The C’s open up an eight-game homestand on Wednesday at Nat Bailey Stadium with the first of three in a row against the Spokane Indians, a Texas Rangers affiliate.