The Cardinals and first baseman Matt Adams have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $2.8MM, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports (on Twitter). That figure is an exact match with the projection from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.
Adams, 28, missed roughly three weeks of the 2016 season with shoulder troubles but was productive in a part-time role when healthy. The slugging lefty batted .249/.309/.471 with 16 homers in a 327 trips to the plate. The shoulder injury and Adams’ deficiencies against left-handed pitching combined to limit his on-field action last season, and with Matt Carpenter penciled in as the everyday first baseman for the 2017 club, he’s unlikely to see an increase in playing time (barring injuries elsewhere on the roster). Adams has been mentioned as a possible trade candidate this winter, and the Royals are one team that has shown some preliminary interest. However, the free-agent market is flooded with players of comparable skill sets that don’t figure to come with significant asking prices at this point, which likely limits interest Adams to some extent.
Adams has long been a weapon against right-handed pitching when healthy, mashing opposite-handed pitchers at a .284/.331/.480 clip in his career. Lefties have befuddled the big man, however, as he’s mustered a woeful .212/.243/.342 slash against them. Durability has also been an issue for Adams in the past. In addition to last year’s shoulder troubles, he had brief DL stints for oblique and calf injuries in 2013 and 2014, respectively, before missing about half of the 2015 campaign with a torn right quadriceps muscle.
This marks the second trip through the arbitration process for Adams, who will be eligible once more next winter before becoming a free agent upon completion of the 2018 campaign. Remember that you can follow along with this year’s arb class using MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker.
Guy can contribute if given the opportunity.
I’ve always thought he’d excel on an AL team of he could stay healthy
Dude needs to be traded, bad. Not worth much, but the Cards need to do a guy a solid and give him a chance somewhere else.
He has been available for trade all winter long.
Aaaaaand, he’s still available.
The best defensive first baseman we have
Let’s keep him, why give him away? A nice bat off the bench with some pop, just ask Kershaw. Also fun to watch him run the bases.
I always thought a reunion with Mark Reynolds would be good Reynolds doesn’t expect to play everyday and would be a good Platoon Option with Carp at 1st. So trade Fat Adams for some big league chew
They don’t need another 1B. The idea would be to trade Adams so they can carry a 5th OF. Gyorko can play some 1st when Carpenter needs a day off.
carp is not a platoon player.
I’ve heard that they have interest in Sam Fuld
was fake news
That wasn’t even a rumor. It was a column at the Cardinals’ official site in a MLB.com series about which under-the-radar free agents beat reporters felt their teams could pursue. Hence, this paragraph: “MLB.com asked its beat reporters to offer a bold prediction about a potential coming transaction for the club he or she covers. So here’s mine:”
“Fake news” pretends to be real news, and the frightening thing about it is that content that’s on the same level as stuff from The Onion is being accepted as actual news, simply because it’s being parroted that way.
I’m curious what the Cardinals’ asking price is on Adams because surely somebody would trade for him and I thought the consensus was that they would like to trade him. I know he isn’t a hidden gem, but he’s certainly a viable part-time power bat (not that it doesn’t hurt having him around).
Someone would trade for him if all it cost were a broken-down pitcher in A-Ball.
Rightly or wrongly, GMs won’t trade “validly intriguing prospects” for pieces they don’t covet. Adams is in that neighborhood. If waived (He won’t be.), well over a dozen teams would negotiate with him. But, nobody wants to trade “what St. Louis wants”, which is likely an intriguing prospect from any of 29 systems.
All GMs do this. On either side of the equation. Demand too much for yours. Offer too little for theirs.
keep him, play him
The Cards have a log jam in the infield. The problem is besides Carpenter, none of them are good enough to start for Cubs. So how can they win the division with them?
Well, for one, even though he’s not the defensive wonder he used to be, Molina is still a better catcher than anybody on the Cubs, especially at the plate. And the Cubs probably wouldn’t keep Diaz’s bat on the bench–he wouldn’t start over Russell, obviously, but he’d start over Zorbrist and Baez at second.
Second, the gap would be closed with pitching, where the Cubs’ rotation is most likely to regress from an incredible 2016 performance and where the Cardinals’ rotation features a return to health and arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball.
I’d take Diaz over Russell.