Big Mayo, Big Country, Jumbo Pepsi - what is his nickname and what is his role on the team? Is he an everyday player or does he need to be platooned vs LHP? How much power does he have? These are just a few of the questions the team faces with first baseman Matt Adams.
Adams was rushed to MLB in 2012 when Lance Berkman went down with a knee injury and struggled in the 27 games he played from May 20th to June 21st hitting .244/.286/.384. He made the team in 2013 as the number one option off the bench but became the full time first baseman in early September and through the World Series run due to Allen Craig’s knee injury. He was the unquestioned starter coming into 2014 and faced lofty expectations due to his .284/.355/.503 performance in 2013.
Adams is a career .283/.323/.465 hitter. If you acknowledge he was rushed to the majors in 2012 and drop that season from his career line, he improves slightly to .287/.327/.474. I think the more interesting “arbitrary end points”-slanted approach is to look at his monthly splits.
In each of the two full seasons he has been in the big leagues, he’s gone on an absolute power tear for a month of the season. Through his first 202 PA in 2014, Adams had only launched three home runs, but was hitting .325. Many writers hypothesized he had traded power for contact ability which wasn't entirely accurate since he was still striking out nearly 20% of the time and had a .390 BABIP. His 2013 strikeout rate was 25%, so the improvement had cut ten strikeouts from his line to that point in the season, but the BABIP was the real anomaly as his 2013 BABIP was only .337.
On June 13th, Adams homered in his return from a stint on the DL due to a calf strain. He followed that with home runs in each of the next two games and would hit five more before the All Star break in mid-July. By the All Star break, his SLG was comfortably above .500, he was hitting .329, and had 11 home runs. It was the best of both worlds.
This wasn't the first time Adams had gone on a streak like this. When Allen Craig went down with a knee injury on September 4th, 2013, Adams was hitting .266/.327/.449 and had only hit two home runs since July 9th. He replaced Craig in the 4th inning of that game and proceeded to hit two home runs in extra innings to power the Cards to the win. Including that game he surged to a .326/.355/.629 finished with eight home runs over his last 24 games.
My point in bringing this up is, in the roughly two full seasons he's played, Adams has been a solid hitter who can catch fire. If you remove the two streaks – from 9/4/2013-9/29/2013 and from 6/13/2014- 7/11/2014, you’re left with a completely different player. Outside of these two streaks, he's never hit more than three home runs in a month.
G, PA
|
BA/OBP/SLG
|
Home Runs
|
K/BB
|
|
Career
|
277, 973
|
.283/.323/.465
|
34
|
218/54
|
2013 and 2014
|
250, 882
|
.287/.327/.474
|
32
|
194/49
|
2013 Streak (9/4/2013-9/29/2013)
|
24, 93
|
.326/.355/.629
|
8
|
26/4
|
2014 Streak (6/13/2014-7/11/2014)
|
27, 106
|
.350/.368/.670
|
8
|
19/3
|
Total Streaks
|
51, 199
|
.339/.360/.640
|
16
|
45/7
|
2013 and 2014 Minus Streaks
|
199, 683
|
.271/.320/.410
|
16
|
149/42
|
This observation comes before pointing out his platoon split of a .851 OPS vs RHP and .553 vs LHP, with a terrible 61/7 K/BB, and his overall awful walk rate of 5.5%. His walk rate is the 37th lowest of players with 950+ PA since the start of 2012, and combined with his strikeout rate, his K/BB ratio is the 13th lowest of the same group. Adams only had a career minor league walk rate of 6.7% and that includes seven intentional walks in his 2011 Texas League MVP season. With only 55 career minor league walks, removing the IBBs (the seven in AA and one in AAA), drops his walk rate to an abysmal 5.75%, slightly above his major league career walk rate.
He’s never going to walk which means he needs to hit for power on a more consistent basis. His 2014 average fly ball distance of 274.71 feet ranked just ahead of Eugenio Suarez and behind players like Brock Holt and Andrelton Simmons. In 2013 his fly balls average 289.41 feet, sandwiching him between Matt Holliday and Adrian Beltre. His drop from 2013 to 2014 of 14.7 feet was the 22nd largest of all players – a group which included three players fading into retirement (Dunn, Ibanez, and Soriano). Adams’ 2013 season created huge expectations for him. He slugged over .500 and had a HR/FB rate of almost 22%. In the past five seasons, there have been 23 instances of qualified batters having an HR/FB rate at or above Adams’ 2012 rate. Elite power hitters like Giancarlo Stanton, Chris Davis, and Miguel Cabrera have all done it multiple times. Adams' 2013 season was a fluke. He's not an elite power hitter and won't flirt with a 20% HR/FB rate in the future.
If he's not going to walk and he's not an elite power hitter, it is imperative that Adams improves against LHP, otherwise he's not an everyday player. Hitting LHP was never a problem for Adams in the minors, but he only did so 245 times. He managed to hit .293/.355/.518 in those plate appearances. Here's the pitching he faced in 2014 per Brooks Baseball:
Usage
|
Swing
|
Whiff
|
||||
RH
|
LH
|
RH
|
LH
|
RH
|
LH
|
|
FB
|
29.7%
|
32.8%
|
47.5%
|
47.4%
|
8.5%
|
7.3%
|
Sinker
|
24.6%
|
19.2%
|
45.4%
|
51%
|
4.1%
|
17.5%
|
Change
|
11.5%
|
3.5%
|
56.2%
|
52.8%
|
18.9%
|
22.2%
|
Slider
|
10.6%
|
24%
|
54.3%
|
48.4%
|
15.7%
|
18.8%
|
Curve
|
13%
|
10.6%
|
44.9%
|
45.1%
|
17.4%
|
20.7%
|
Sinker
|
AB
|
K
|
BAA
|
SLG
|
BABIP
|
LHP
|
41
|
15
|
.146
|
.195
|
.231
|
RHP
|
177
|
19
|
.362
|
.593
|
.378
|
Slider
|
|||||
LHP
|
72
|
30
|
.167
|
.181
|
.286
|
RHP
|
89
|
28
|
.258
|
.371
|
.356
|
To get a sense of how putrid Adams' performance against LHP sinkers is, Johnny Cueto held right handed hitters to a .176 average average and .285 slugging percentage on his sinker last season. Zach Britton ended 235 plate appearances vs left handed hitters with a sinker and even they managed to post a .187 average and a .255 slugging percentage. Britton's batting average against was the lowest of any left handed pitcher throwing at least 200 sinkers to left handed hitters. The slider problems are more understandable as 13 left handed pitchers threw 200 or more sliders to left handed hitters and limited them to a lower average than Adams'. Major league hitters are able to hit same side sinkers more so than same side sliders.
Adams managed to hit .400! in 110 PA when hitting the ball to left field. A huge part of his production came from his performance to the opposite field, yet even in the NLCS, teams were still shifting to defend him!? Does that make sense?
Yes, the Giants are a smart team and realized just how lucky and unsustainable Adams' LF production was in 2014. His BABIP to LF was .384 compared to .323 to CF and .320 to RF. Here's how his batted balls fell:
LD
|
GB
|
FB
|
IFFB
|
IFH%
|
|
LF
|
25.7%
|
14.2%
|
60.2%
|
14.7%
|
31.3%
|
CF
|
19.8%
|
36.5%
|
43.7%
|
5.5%
|
2.2%
|
RF
|
26.5%
|
45.9%
|
27.6%
|
2%
|
2.4%
|
Two numbers should stick out. First, Mike Trout led all of baseball in IFH % last season at 15.9%. Mike Trout and Ichiro Suzuki are the only two qualified hitters in the last five seasons to eclipse 15%. They are both very fast. Adams is not. These only amounted to five hits and here is what one of them looked like, this one being a "double":
Second, Adams hit substantially more flyballs to LF and more infield fly balls (expressed as a % of total fly balls). IFFB have the lowest likelihood of any batted ball to fall in for a hit while opposite field fly balls aren't much better. Teams will continue to shift Adams as he isn't able to hurt them there and he will not be as fortunate with hits dropping in this year.
The Cards must determine what to expect from Big Mayo. He faced LHP more often in 2014 than in 2013 and the results were atrocious. Mark Reynolds hits right handed and would be a better option at first against LHP, but do they want to give up on Big Mayo becoming an everyday player?
I don’t think they should just yet. Adams’ minor league numbers and scouting reports suggest he’ll be able to hit LHP. He won't turn 27 until August 31st and he’s only faced LHPs 203 times in MLB. That being said, if he doesn’t show progress against LHP this year, it’s unlikely he ever will improve. He will never be a high OBP player and he's not an elite power hitter. For Adams to be a solid, everyday player, he needs to become more consistent and a big part of that involves hitting LHP. He should look towards improving his performance against sinkers to do this.
I think expectations for Adams should be in the 15-20 home run range rather than the 20-25 range. PECOTA projects a .272/.315/.458 line which is in line with his career averages. This is just above adequate at first base and PECOTA pegs him for 1.6 WARP. If the power falters even slightly from this projection, he’s essentially replacement level because the OBP is so low. Last year, five of the 23 qualified first baseman had an OBP lower than .315 and they combined for -0.2 fWAR. There's very little margin for error for a hitter with Adams' profile.
I believe Adams will be starting at 1B on Opening Night with LHP Jon Lester on the mound. He has the tools and there are ways he can improve vs LHP. 2013 represents the peak of Adams' offensive ability and there are a lot of indicators suggesting his 2014 season was built on a lot of luck. Adams must do more in 2015 to show that is not the case and establish himself as a first division regular going forward as he'll be arbitration eligible for the first time in 2016.
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