The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Free agent pick Adams glad he’s with Nationals
First baseman’s deal proves smart in slow free agent market.
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — Matt Adams didn’t want to extend his first foray into free agency longer than necessary. He didn’t want to take any chances. He could do without the stress. As a result, his demands were relatively simple. He wanted to play for a team expected to contend for a World Series, and he wanted to work in a great clubhouse. Culture was important.
So when the Washington Nationals came calling, he reached out to Chris Heisey, a former Nationals outfielder. Heisey talked his old organization up, and Adams was convinced. He agreed to a one-year contract in mid-December worth $4 million, with an additional $500,000 in possible incentives, as his peers languished in a cold free agent world.
“A pitch really wasn’t needed,” Adams said. “I heard nothing but great things about how they go about their business.”
The deal was initially met with some confusion from observers who assumed Adams would have more suitors fresh off belting 20 home runs with an .841 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 367 plate appearances last season. Not only was Adams committing to a one-year deal at a salary recent history indicated was relatively cheap for a 29-yearold with his slugging ability, but he was committing to a team that already employed Ryan Zimmerman, an established starting first baseman coming off a resurgent allstar season. Adams signed the dotted line knowing he would play every day only if there was an injury.
But over the next couple of months, as a slow-moving free agent market treated power-hitting first basemen as marginal pieces, the decision transitioned from premature to prescient. While Adams found his home before the new year, a few peers only recently sealed jobs.
In the past two weeks, the Kansas City Royals signed Lucas Duda, whose 113 Weighted Runs Created Plus last season was just better than Adams’ 112, to a oneyear contract worth $3.5 million. The salary can climb an additional $1.3 million with incentives. Adam Lind, the player Adams is essentially replacing at Washington’s left-handed-hitting backup first baseman and emergency left fielder, signed a minor league deal with the New York Yankees. He was added as a depth piece and isn’t projected to make the Opening Day roster. And so it goes for a 34-year-old slugger limited with the glove but coming off a season in which he compiled 14 home runs with an .875 OPS and was one of baseball’s best pinch hitters.
“I’m just glad that we got him,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said of Adams. “He’s a great addition. To have a guy like that who cannot only come off the bench but potentially can play every day [is valuable].”
Like Lind, Adams mashes right-handed pitching and is well below league average against left-handers. Last season, Adams hit 17 of his 20 home runs, batted .295 and posted an .896 OPS off righties in 304 plate appearances with the Cardinals and Braves. Lefties held him to a .180 batting average and .583 OPS in 63 plate appearances. The sample size, while not a full season’s slate, is representative of his career splits. The striking disparity is strange considering the most memorable moment of Adams’ career: crushing a curveball from Clayton Kershaw, one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers in baseball history, for a go-ahead threerun home run in Game 4 of the 2014 NLDS.
In an effort to channel that swing more consistently, Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long and assistant hitting coach Joe Dillon have worked with Adams on picking up left-handed pitching better. Long said the improvement starts with shifting his feet to create a better line of vision. Adams’ stance, Long determined, was too closed off against southpaws. It was the same diagnosis Long made on Curtis Granderson when Long was with the Yankees and Granderson joined the team before the 2010 season. Granderson arrived in New York with seven career home runs against lefties over his first six major league seasons. He had 16 off them in 2011.
“He’s a little giddy right now,” Long said of Adams earlier in the spring, before games started. “We’re going to have to keep him humble because he’s not humble right now, and I hope it stays that way.”
The next layer in Adams’ makeover has been having him face lefty curveballs and sliders from a machine in the cage. To make the simulation more difficult, Adams moves a few feet closer to the machine with each breaking pitcher and then back to the original spot 60 feet, 6 inches away. He sees the pitches from different slots.
“This is a whole new world for me,” Adams said.