Matt Adams sets Springfield HR Record
Posted on August 19th, 2011 by azruavatar in Matt Adams, tags: Matt AdamsLast night Matt Adams pelted his 29th and 30th homeruns to first tie and then exceed the record set by Colby Rasmus in 2007. I’ve written about Adams with some frequency here and I think it’s safe to say that he’s a controversial prospect among readers.
Adams jumped two levels from a full year in Quad Cities to spend the full season in Springfield. Admittedly, Springfield is a hitter’s park in a hitter’s league but there’s little argument that Adams is having a heck of a year. With 30 HRs and an ISO hovering near .300, Adams is a legitimate first base prospect — probably the best one the Cardinals have had since Albert Pujols.
To some extent, that’s faint praise. Prior to Adams, one of the “premier” first base prospects was Mark Hamilton who few people expected to be a real force in the majors if he ever made it there. Adams is unquestionably the best power prospect in the system and probably is a tick better in that regard than former top power prospect Allen Craig (who, if it hasn’t been apparent for the last three years, I’m a big fan of).
Springfield and AA is often thought as the biggest single level jump in competition for prospects. Pitchers have better command and more advanced breaking pitches than their lower minors counterparts. The defense is generally better as some of the players without positions have been filtered out of the systems. The hitters are more patient at the plate and better able to foul off pitches or punish mistakes. Pitcher or position player, AA is a huge test for prospects.
Matt Adams, Springfield record holder, has passed that test this year. Some minor injuries and crowded Memphis squad have held the big slugger in AA despite his prodigious offensive numbers. There are still aspects to Adams’ game that will need improvement: conditioning, defense and plate discipline. Acknowledging weaknesses doesn’t dilute the fact that Adams has significant strengths as well; primarily, his ability to punish the ball with a powerful swing.
Matt Adams is unlikely to be the next Albert Pujols. Comparisons of that nature are markedly unfair to both players. Given his 2011 performance, however, Adams’ projection looks less like whether he’ll make the majors and more about just how good he can be in the majors.
But for now, for today, it’s enough to just enjoy the fact that one of the Cardinals’ prospects hit 30 HRs in the minors. Enjoy that for the remarkable feat that it is, in and of itself. Congrats to Matt on his impressive accomplishment.
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Good stuff.
Just curious, what is the cards AA homerun record?
In the modern Era AKA since 1960 its Tyrone Horne in 1998 in the same Texas League.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=horne-001rog
The emergence of Adams as a legit, power hitting 1b prospect makes this offseason a very interesting one for the cardinals with regards to Pujols’ future in St. Louis.
Great write-up Azru. I think many times we all get tied up in what a prospect should look like and forget that these are kids playing their hearts out on the field. With that being said, Matt has (in my opinion) stepped up after skipping high A and not only held his own, but excelled at AA ball. Matt has only played 1st base for 2.5 years now, so on the defensive side I expect he will improve, especially the footwork. His walk rate can and needs to improve, but I’m not so worried about that at this time.
What does everyone think? AFL invite? Worthy or not?
Also, congratulations to Matt for breaking the record. Now onto breaking the single season RBI record of 97.
I am sticking to my prediction—Matt Adams Cardinals 3B of the future
We don’t do defense :)
We don’t do defense, until we do do defense. Really it’s up to LaRussa. He’s changed his mind before about this, so who knows.
I think there is a good chance LaRussa will convert him into a second basemen.
I hope larussa never gets his hands on Matt Adams.
If his name wasn’t larussa, and pujols didn’t love him, Tony would have been fired by now
he does present an interesting option for the team. if AP leaves, maybe Berkman for a 1 year deal, then Adams. Craig has really stepped up this year, I can’t wait to see both he and Freese have a whole year playing in the bigs to see what they can do. w/o getting into the TLR thing, I think he will go, and I think AP will also. I think they will offer arb, let him go find a deal, then decline to match. it set’s up for an interesting off season, with kids coming of age, a need for starting pitching, even a choice on Yadi. do you want to pay 7 mil for him, or re up long term, or…..? this will be the most important off season in a few years, and I think Adams will have an impact on how it plays out. If he get’s in better condition, I can live with a 1b who hit’s for power and rbi’s but doesn’t walk as much b/c he’s bashing the ball. bigger worry is CF and 2B.
Agree, this could, potentially, be a watershed off-season for the organization: TLR, Pujols, questions concerning the middle of the defense, and starting rotation questions. A return of Wainwright would be a big plus.
If this is a pitch-to-contact team, then it needs to be structured in a way to better maximize that and not give away outs with shoddy defense. For all the talk of “win now” over the last month or two, one wonders if the team wouldn’t have been just as well off merely picking up Furcal, and letting it go at that. Jackson, Dotel, and Rhodes have been so-so. Don’t see that they’ve been real difference makers.
For all the talk over the last 3 or 4 years of acquiring “proven veteran-i-ness” for pennant drives, seems like our mid-season retreads are just worn out old players with nothing left in the tank. This has become a regular mid-summer event for roster shortcomings. Maybe more needs to happen this off-season so we don’t have to keep trying to cobble things together at mid-season.
There is only one person on here that continually talks smack constantly about Matt Adams and I will refrain from naming this posters name.
Matt Adams will be a professional ML player very soon… and will have a very productive career in the majors.
You bet he will.
Sorry guys I can’t get excited about a guy who hits 26 of 30 HR in the 3 top hitters parks in a year that may break the leagues HR record and is already well over 100 HR better than last years total with over a .030 OPS spike
Adams is still riding his flukey 34 game stretch where he had his unsustainable run going 53-for-135 .393 with 27 of his 53 hits going as extra base hits. Outside of that period he is just 72-for-263 .274 this year in the same hitters league and has seen his OPS drop over .225 points from his first half total to his post All-star break to a level.
I have been following the Texas League for almost 10 years now and seen countless guys see big offensive spikes here and this year the offense is up like it was pre-testing and that’s with a new added pitchers park added to the league in Little Rock or the place Adams is hitting .250 with 1 HR this year.
Its cool if you guys have high hopes for him to each his own, but I will only believe Adams is a big leaguer when he hits for power in the majors and only then. If he makes it then all you guys can feel free to call me out and if he doesn’t it doesn’t matter we will have a new flavor of the month.
Just wondering what prospect you are excited about Richard?
I like several players I just understand how hard it is to stick in the show let a lone start. I don’t take for granted studs like Miller will live up to his hype. I will never buy into black and white stats that’s why I still like Seth Blair when most here are down on him.
wow, way to go on the record there RR.
I would love to hear why you like Seth Blair despite his beyond mediocre year
He actually has true talent and will be a MLB player, the second he gets his control issues ironed out he will fly to the majors.
Adams has an exceptionally easy and effortless swing. I watched from the bullpen in short season as he hit a ball in Mahoning Valley that went OVER their scoreboard. He is legit. He was a catcher at slippery rock and the move to first base should actually be easier and easier for him. Catching is probably the hardest thing to do. Not to mention Matt came from Division 2 baseball. He has exceeded so many expectations and will continue to do that.
Seth Blair has great stuff. Ive played long toss with him a few times. A cannon for an arm. He will succeed too, its just a matter of coming out of college and trying to pitch instead of trying to strike guys out with a 95mph heater. spotting 90-92 is better than 95, and ive said that my entire life.
And he’s going to get his control issues ironed out why? It’s not so easy. He’s facing easy competition and failing.
It may not as a starter but he has 3 plus pitches and that stuff will carry him to the majors in some role.
Yeah, I would hope so. The guy was a first rounder…
Scouting reports of Blair at the time of his drafting do not say he has 3 plus pitches. Instead, he has one good out pitch (a fastball that hit high 90s at the beginning of the season but was sitting 90-94 once he settled in), a “solid-to-average” slider, and a change that could develop. He also has command issues, which have been evident so far.
That said, there’s a question of how much and how long his injury has affect his performance this season. But even healthy, right now he does not have the stuff to carry him to the majors. His stuff is fairly average, which is why his upside is a mid-rotation starter.
I’m not sure why you think it’s going to be more likely for a 22 year-old struggling in A-ball to learn a semblance of control than it is for a 22 year-old in AA to learn to take a walk. When you add in the fact that Adams has a mightily impressive secondary skill (massive power) and has had success at a higher level, I think it’s somewhat difficult to be high on one guy with a massive red flag (Blair) and not the other guy with a smaller red flag (Adams).
Adams doesn’t have massive power he’s a normal power hitter playing in the best HR park in the best HR division that has all parks favor to LH power in of a one of the better hitters leagues in Baseball during a season where they are chasing down the all-time HR record.
If he had Plus Plus power he would have been rated in our Top-30 and had more than just 22.15 HR per AB before this year considering his previous home parks. His 13.53 AB per HR in 2011 is a aberration he has a HR every 11.15 AB in 290 AB in the 3 big HR parks to LH hitters leaving him 4 HR in 116 AB in parks that aren’t as extreme towards LH bats.
There’s a reason why Springfield is leading in HR hit and allowed this year and have lead the Texas League in HR the 3 prior seasons under the current alignment. Its no accident that the franchise hasn’t hit the most HR of any Texas League team by a wide margin since joining the league, and its not because we develop all these great big league sluggers!
I thought you were on record as saying you didn’t care about ratings. I could be wrong.
No I don’t care much about them but if someone had plus plus power they would be listed in a teams top 30 list its not something they are going to miss.
i am all for throwing cold water on expectations but this seems a bit harsh. sure, everybody gets a bump up from springfield, but that doesn’t mean that everything someone does at springfield is meaningless.
matt adams is leading the whole texas league in slugging, with only one player close to him on slugging. two guys who have had stints in the majors – mike trout and j.d. martinez – this year didn’t slug like matt. they’re playing in the same stadiums as adams.
adams’s other stints in the minors all featured .500+ slugging marks.
let’s be honest about his shortcomings, but let’s also be fair about his abilities.
I also won’t “believe” he’s a big leaguer until he is one but your analaysis almost seems like it’s a demerit to be having a huge year in the Texas League. Adams creamed the ball in two age appropriate years at JC, Batavia and Quad Cities then unexpectedly skipped high A and has raked in a league that he’s underaged and underexperienced for. How huge a year would he have to have?
I don’t think anyone’s putting him in the hall of fame because he’s hit well at Springfield but the point is that he hasn’t met a league that he can’t hit in and that’s about all a prospect can do until he crashes the bigs. My suspicion is that he’ll be a big leaguer but the question is whether he’ll hit up to the expectations for a middle of the order first baseman. So far I don’t think he’s done anything that proves he can’t.
I agree. It’s one thing to be conservative about a prospect and acknowledging his weaknesses, but it’s entirely another to continually tear down a player’s performance because of the park and league he plays in while ignoring said player’s history to this point.
Adams has some limitations, but the power is legit. You do not set a franchise record for home runs because said franchise is historically hitter’s park.
This is a double replay to both above. Go back and see where he’s done his damage in his career and look at the park factors. I don’t undervalue him here for fun to cause a stir I have legit reasoning being it. If he went to Palm Beach and did this I would been excited but he does most all of his work in hitters parks and in the majors we play in a pitchers park on top of facing better pitching.
I don’t think you’re doing it just to cause a stir; I just question your reasoning that views Adams in a vacuum in relation to other players who play in the same parks and leagues. You keep ignoring the fact that Adams’s power is far better than anybody else around him or players who have played in the same parks in past seasons.
I was one of those preaching caution about Adams early in the season, and I’m still preaching caution today. But you’re overvaluing park factors to an extreme.
Springfield is the run away best hitters park in the league, if he played in Midland, Arkansas or San Antonio he wouldn’t be anywhere close to having the same season. The S-Cards have hit and allowed the most HR in the league for a reason, and its because the play the most games in ideal hitting conditions and is the same reason the lead the league in HR for the last 4 years.
nobody doubts there’s a substantial park factor. in another park, he’d be having another season, yes. but you’re not trying to control for it. would that other season in another park be a great, good, or bad one? show us your work.
otherwise, just claiming that someone is not a good hitter because they play in a hitter’s park is nonsense. people used to say the same thing about matt holliday, that he was just a coors’ field phenomenon. no doubt coors field helped, but holliday was a great hitter, even setting aside the park factor.
or jose bautista plays in one of the most home run friendly parks in the majors. if he played in busch, he’d have different stats. but he’d still be an excellent hitter.
here’s a different question, then: how good a hitter would he be in Midland or San Antonio? tell us what you think, and show us how you make that decision.
He would be just another guy just like he was before if he was not in this situation, he’s a decent hitter with some pop but not enough to be a MLB 1B. In layman terms he’s basically Mark Hamilton with good health.
mark hamilton has slugged .384, .383, and .521 over three seasons in springfield. the last one at age 25. he hit 22 home runs over something like 750 PAs total.
adams is slugging .612 and has hit 30 HR in 438 PAs. he’ll turn 23 at the end of the month. i don’t think there’s any objective way to make that comp. playing in the same environment, adams far excelled what hamilton did at the same age, or even older.
i didn’t really see you use any park factors or explain why you think adams is just decent. which is okay – you don’t have to have a mathematical formula for every belief you hold. but if all you’re saying is that you don’t think he’s a future MLB 1b in your opinion. maybe you could be less vehement in expressing your thoughts, like telling other people to use their brains, if what you’re relying on is just your personal perception.
Like I said he is a HEALTHY Mark Hamilton, its cool you love him I don’t one bit sorry. I have posted countless reason why he will never be a MLB starter and stand by them until proven wrong.
If he makes it big everyone here can feel free to throw it in my face and throw a party and hell I’ll even change my name to Matt Adams #1 fan or something. When he fails and gets exposed he will be forgotten quickly for the new Springfield flavor of the month.
i am really not sure why there are a host of posters who feel like this is a forum for completely obnoxious responses. i’ve tried to be very polite. i grow very tired of nasty sniping from people who can’t have a civil discussion or disagreement.
Where do you get that people aren’t being polite?
I think Adams is a product of hitters park and I have gave my reasons countless times in countless threads with stats. I said its cool if you or anyone else disagrees and they have my permission to throw if in my face if I’m wrong.
We have two different views and neither one of us are going to change the other ones view so I don’t see where your beef is at!
tom s, you are absolutely correct. There is no comp between Hamilton and Adams. Hamilton has a career .477 slugging and Matt Adams is .561. You aren’t getting the last word in so you may as well let it be.
If Hamilton played a full year and stayed healthy he would have a much higher SLB there as shown by going to Memphis and posting his .535 SLG despite playing in a fair park for half his games and facing far more experienced pitching.
That’s an opinion. But, he had his chance when he was 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26…. It’s hard to make any comparison whatsoever when he’s 27.
“Springfield is the run away best hitters park in the league, if he played in Midland, Arkansas or San Antonio he wouldn’t be anywhere close to having the same season.”
And what about players who have played at Springfield who Adams has outperformed, like Allen Craig? Again, you’re isolating park factors for a single player, without looking to see what similar power hitting prospects did in the same place (and yes, he has outperformed Mark Hamilton, injuries or no injuries. You can’t speculate that “Hamilton would have done just as well” without any real basis for that statement and expect people to agree).
Your methods are a misuse of park factors, which is why nobody else, including people who could be called statheads, is really agreeing with you on this point.
Craig is a RH hitter the league plays differently from each side and the Texas League and especially north parks favor LH bats big time. Take Arvest Ballpark for example for LH bats its a HR launching pad but its a pitchers park for RH bats, Hammons Field is in a different plant for LH bats.
As far as Hamilton goes he didn’t play all the same series in the same parks. ONEOK Field wasn’t there when Mark played Adams has 20% of his HR there, Arvest Ballpark was there for 2 of 3 years and Mark hit there with his 3rd highest HR total with Arkansas a pitchers park 2nd and clearly Springfield 1st.
RR I don’t begrudge you your opinion but I think you’re wrong about a couple of things. First of all I don’t think any of us are merrily predicting superstardom for Adams. We just think that his performance demands our attention and that he should be considered a real prospect. Second, in several of your comments you imply that he would not be considered a prospect if he didn’t play in Springfield. In fact only 14 of his 62 career home runs have been hit there. He has hit over .300 everywhere he’s played including road games this year. He had a shot at the Midwest League triple crown until a late season injury last year. His recent increase in walks, possibly at the expense of his other stats, indicates that he’s coachable.
Park factors are important but, as others have pointed out, shouldn’t be used to dismiss a player who has thrived in four diffferent leagues and a variety of environments. There are several reasons to be cautious about Adams including his physical make up and, yes, the fact that he’s playing in a hitter’s park and league but these are only factors not determinents of his ceiling.
Go look at all the parks he hit his HR’s in and the extreme majority of them are HR parks that favor LH bats, I wouldn’t come here and preach that if it wasn’t true.
I would also like to add i believe it was you that was ripping his fielding at 1b earlier in the year saying he couldn’t even be an average 1b. I believe you mentioned the word butcher multiple times. How many complaints about his D lately? By all accounts he’s improved it by leaps and bounds. That just shows hes a hard working and will continue to work hard to try to make the Big Leagues.
I don’t recall being that hard on his defense but its not that good honestly, He has 8 errors himself but is a partial reason why Cox, Jackson, Garcia and the other infielders have such inflated error totals.
Is the consensus that Hamilton has little if any future at the MLB level?
He’s a 27 year old first baseman in AAA. Nelson Cruz is the exception that proves the rule. I doubt that Hamilton gets an extended try with a big league club.
Not a real phrase
It’s an idiom.
HEY! WHO’RE YOU CALLING AN IDIO…
oh.
I did a rundown of comps and checked who I thought best compared to adams offensively. One name which stuck out in the way of minor league stats was robinson cano. Which sounds better than it is. Cano is an outstanding hitter – for a second baseman. While hitting for a .370 wOBA is nothing to sniff at, as a first baseman it makes you a major leaguer, but not so much a star.
I do hope adams puts in the work on his patience to take a few walks. Obviously, as azru touches on, some conditioning to improve his mobility at first wouldn’t hurt either.
Azruavatar I have to disagree with 4th paragraph, the jump to Double-A in our system is the easiest we have. There are very few bats that come to Springfield and don’t see major offense spikes. We have 11 guys this year alone with over 120 PA and .780 or better OPS.
Full Season 2010 and 2011 Team OPS and League rankings
.762 and .767 for Memphis 12/16 and 15/16
.774 and .797 for Springfield 2/8 and 1/8
.695 and .694 for Palm Beach 5/12 and 9/12
.748 and .725 for Quad Cities 3/16 and 1/16
You don’t really need to keep guessing what effect Springfield’s park has on Adams’s numbers. His wOBA is .419, but his park adjusted wOBA (his wOBA*) is .396. These numbers haven’t been updated with his recent two homer game but the point remains the same – about 24 points of Adams’s wOBA is attributable to park effects.
26 of 30 HR in 3 parks and a 34 game streak of hitting half your extra base hits and most all of your BA are real red flags, I’m sorry but sabermetrics are meaningless to me in extreme hitters parks and league’s the number crunching doesn’t tell you things about how the play to LH and RH hitters. Parks like NW Arkansas play as a pitchers park to RH power hitters but to LH bats its a extreme HR park.
Huh? The numbers I just gave you do not account for the league, just the park. And yes, the numbers tell you exactly how the park plays differently for LH and RH hitters. No offense, but at least try to understand what you’re talking about before discounting the numbers out of hand.
They better check those formulas because there is no way his inflated 26 of 30 HR in 3 Texas League HR parks in a record offensive year correlate with 2010 Pujols. You only need to use your brain for this BC.
You’ve lost me. The numbers I cited earlier aren’t meant to “correlate” with 2010 Pujols, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
One way you might make the comparison I think you’re trying to make is to compare how well Adams and Pujols have hit relative to their respective leagues, using park adjusted stats. In this way Adams has a WOBA+ of 115 this year at SPR and Pujols had a wOBA+ of 135 in 2010 – this shows that Pujols had a much, much better year in 2010 compared to his league than Adams is having this year in the Texas League.
Lets make it easy wake me up when he hits in the majors or even consistently in non-hitters parks. Sorry no calculator with apparent flawed formulas can change what my eyes can see.
The guy does most all of his damage in hitters parks, and had a fluke 34 game run that likely will never be duplicated. I can’t get excited over wind blown HRs and balls hit distances that wouldn’t even be out of MLB parks in a league seeing a major league wide spike in offense, sorry.
Whatever, man. I’m not even a particular fan of Adams, I was trying to help you with how you could measure park effects, instead of just indiscriminately bleating about Adams playing in a hitters park and league.
I know the park effects I have actually been to tall of them in person.
Wait. So you come on here, day after day, and post the park effect numbers of the places Adams plays over and over because in your mind it somehow proves he can’t hit, but then you want to discount the numbers entirely because they’re “apparently flawed” when they don’t support your argument? You then invoke the classic, “My eyes tell me what your numbers can’t,” when virtually all of your arguments against Adams are essentially based on the same exact set of numbers, repeated ad infinitum every time his name appears in a recap. You’ve got to be kidding.
Look, I don’t know where your dislike of Matt Adams comes from, but honestly, it feels more pathological than anything else at this point. You can be skeptical; I’m skeptical of Adams for plenty of the reasons which have been discussed hundreds of times over. but you clearly just have a problem with this one particular kid, and what the reason is I just can’t figure out.
I don’t dislike Adams the kid one bit he’s just an product of hitters parks, you don’t have to like it but its what he is. Go look at where he does all his damage and learn about how the parks play all the facts are there for everyone.
He’s having a big year in the best hitters park, in the best hitters division of the two in the Texas league in a year where the league may break its all-time HR record.
Wind blown HRs? Did you see all of his HRs?
The one I saw was a rocket. My notes have it around 400′.
Again, while I understand your concerns with Adams, my question would be if I can’t like his offense, whose can I?
I seen a ton but and listen on the radio every night, the reason the TL is an offense league is small power alleys and jet streams to blow out. The best way for someone who doesn’t follow the team as closely as I do is to check out the Box Scores they give a good idea of what the wind is down.
Take last night for example 6 HR all to LF with 18 mph wind blowing R to L, I bet Swagerty is aware of wind blown HR after the one he gave up in the 9th last night and I bet the Springfield pitchers and their team 5.32 ERA know all these is to know about wind and small parks.
Still trying to find out how you can justify ANYONE being a prospect in the Texas League as you seem to dismiss it so much. I believe you are a Zach Cox fan, can you justify him being a prospect as a LH hitter at Hammonds without the same production as Adams, because it’s not really close at all.
Andrew, I do agree with you. To me Cox is an average player who got tons of money and on the 40man roster but hasn’t shown me much to be projected as a top ten or top 20 prospect. Cox has made tons of errors being a 3rd baseball. As I say, why isn’t other players in Springfield like Cox, Jackson, and the Triple A players that were demoted down to AA hitting HR’s like Adam. Why? Because they dont have his power and are not power hitters like Adam is. So let’s stop saying it’s the Jet Stream. I remember when Castellanos was with the team. He did very well in Springfield and did very well in PB which is a pitcher friendly field and people always found excuses about him. Adam keep up the good work.
Not all parks are created equal and Cox’s power is inflated by the Texas league but that’s not his game.
It blows my mind that you defend Cox’s offensive output while deriding Adams.
The jump in the hitting environment is definitely the easiest. I don’t think that’s the case for the type of pitching they face. AA is when you start to see former (poor) starters relegated to the bullpen.
Regardless, so long as you look at the performance relative to league, that should help to account for the environment you are talking about. Statcorner has his rate performance as 15% better than league (i.e. exactly the same amount better than it was in Quad Cities).
If he’s 15% better than league average in the majors, that would be worth about 25 runs over 650PA. Make him a -10 defender (being pessimistic) -12.5 runs for position, +20 runs for replacement level. If he’s 15% better than league average in the majors, he is a slightly better than league average player.
As I mentioned, I think that there are legitimate concerns about Adams and the hitting environment certainly clouds his performance data. But his performance, relative to the league, is still excellent. I’m not sure how I can like ANY player’s offensive performance in AA by your logic if I can’t like Matt Adams.
After watching and following the TL for most of the season, my conclusion is that the TL pitching has not been as stellar as it has been in recent years.
Though I do not gauge that as a point not to suspect that Adams has talent, as I have seen him play. I am not as impressed with his swing as I am his approach. He has certainly gotten himself an invite to spring training, if he is still around next spring.
The most telling for the AA hitters is when they come up against a star quality pitcher, especially lefties. There are often times the offense struggles until the starter leaves and reliever takes over. Though I know this is baseball, the true test is getting past the better guys, and that takes time. I am looking forward to watching him next season.
Didn’t Colby pretty much become an untouchable after he padded his stats in Double-A? Because from what I remember, he didn’t do well at Triple-A at all. Was Rasmus’ 20 year old season at Springfield that much better than Adams’ 22 year old season this year?
Colby’s season was similar -Colby had a .408wOBA and Adams has a .419wOBA. Colby had a much better walk rate at 12.6%. The main difference was that Colby did it at 20 y/o, which is a big difference, and Colby was a CF, not a 1B, which again is a big difference. Because of age and position, Colby’s season was better than Adams’s, IMO. It’s not really a knock on Adams though, Colby’s season was just really impressive.
As a fellow SRU student (same as Adams) he started to play 1st base his junior season of baseball. He caught his freshman/soph years and then brought 1st base into the mix his junior year as well as catching some too. He has such a nice swing plane, it was a sight to see at the Rock!
Congrats Matt!
Ah, Slippery Rock, aka Slimy Pebbles.
(Note: the above was written by a Shippensburg alum)
Forsch. My brother taught at Shippensburg. I’m a Dickinson alum.
‘Cause this is a family blog, I won’t write what we called Dickinson. ;-) Was the Red Door bookstore still around when you went to Dickinson?
I probably preceeded it. I’m older than dirt. Class of ’70.
If you carry Richie’s logic to it’s ultimate conclusion, it’s impossible for any player at Springfield to ever be a legit prospect. If Babe Ruth came along and slugged 40 homers, it’d be the result of the park, and not any inherent talent on the part of the Bambino.
RichardRich is entitled to his opinons, but he needs to STOP trying to convince the rest of us that ours views are flawed and his aren’t. As some people on this site are sure to know Matt a lot more than him. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of Matt’s family members read this site.
Westvleteren you clearly didn’t read the thread one bit as I said in my first post that Mr.STL called me out in that’s its fine if you like Adams and anyone can feel free to call me out on it when he makes it as MLB player but I for one know he’s a park factor special just like Tyler Greene is this year in Memphis.
Actually, you are wrong yet again. I did read the post. But still you try to convince all of us of your ways. Not once did I ever say that you started this discussion, you clearly just can’t let it go until all of us think like you!!!
There are a few things that indicate that Adams might be legit.
1. Something changed mid season last year. Over his last 200 or so AB’s his HR rate was more than 1 every 15 AB’s. (actually better than this year). No Springfield or TL park affects there!
2. He has upped his LD rate from 14% last year to 21% this year. Again, this should be fairly independent of any park affect.
Matt Adams was named the Texas League Player of the Year today.
Jackson and Miller were also on the Post Season All-Star team.