One Weird Thing About Matt Adams
The Nationals just used Adam Lind as a bat-first, left-handed first baseman and bench bat. Lind turned in a 127 wRC+ against righties. His career wRC+, overall, is 111. Against righties, it’s 126, and against lefties, it’s 56. The Nationals turned down Lind’s $5-million option for 2018, making him a free agent. There was a $0.5-million buyout, meaning it was basically a $4.5-million decision.
The Nationals have now signed Matt Adams as a bat-first, left-handed first baseman and bench bat. It’s a $4-million deal, with an additional $0.5 million in incentives. In other words, it could be a $4.5-million decision. Adams just turned in a 126 wRC+ against righties. His career wRC+, overall, is 111. Against righties, it’s 123, and against lefties, it’s 58. Matt Adams is…this is the same profile. Basically the same profile for basically the same money. The Nationals dropped Adam Lind to pick up another Adam Lind. The one upside about Adams is that he’s five years Lind’s junior. I assume that’s what made the difference, even though Lind was already the familiar one. Smart business. Tough business.
There’s not much that needs to be said about a part-time player. It’s certainly funny that Adams has the same career wRC+ as Eric Hosmer, given their divergent contract expectations, but Hosmer has been better lately, and Adams needs to be strictly platooned. Hosmer, as you could imagine, projects to be better moving forward. Still, I want to highlight one aspect of the comparison. Hosmer and Adams are both first basemen. How about their defense?
Hosmer has a very good defensive reputation. He’s won four Gold Gloves, and he has a 57 overall rating in the historical Fan Scouting Reports. Since 2011, 39 different players have played at least 2,500 innings at first base. Hosmer’s rating is tied for fifth-best, with Anthony Rizzo and Mark Teixeira.
Adams does not have a very good defensive reputation. He was briefly tried in the outfield, but the less said about that, the better. He’s never won a Gold Glove, and he has a 37 overall rating in the historical Fan Scouting Reports. That rating is tied for 27th-best, or 12th-worst. The fans think that Adams has been below average. He definitely lacks Hosmer’s general athleticism.
And yet! If you sort by DRS over a common denominator, Adams ranks eighth, and Hosmer ranks 30th. If you sort by UZR over a common denominator, Adams ranks 10th, and Hosmer ranks 33rd. If you blend the two, then Adams ranks 10th, and Hosmer ranks 32nd. According to the advanced defensive numbers, there’s a significant difference between Matt Adams and Eric Hosmer, in Adams’ favor. He rates as the better defensive first baseman. Against what I assume would be all odds.
I’m not saying that anything is gospel. There are legitimate complaints about the advanced defensive metrics these days, in particular among infielders. We can’t just outright dismiss the eye test, and we can’t dismiss that the baseball industry holds Hosmer’s first-base defense in such high regard. But still, after all this time, there’s an explanation that’s missing. The best numbers we have say that Adams is considerably better than Hosmer is. The numbers are far from perfect, yet they also can’t be trashed. Perception is a hell of a thing.
Anyway, Adams will be a backup, behind Ryan Zimmerman. He will probably be fine.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Adams was a catcher in college and has a good arm and good hands. Defense at 1B was never Adams’ problem. Hosmer has better foot speed, is skinnier, and has some GGs, which likely explains the FSR.
Here is what is crazy; I truly believe Matt Adams is close to as good as Hosmer.
The MLB isn’t really much different than any grouping of people. In an office frequently politics run everything. A less popular person gets passed over for the more popular guy when it comes time for promotion.
Hosmer is the prototypical “popular guy” who gets promoted despite not really being a lick better (and likely worse) than someone who toils away in the same cubicle for decades.
Matt Adams can actually field, as long as the field isn’t out.
His home run off Clayton Kershaw’s curveball was some kind of baseball singularity.
“In Adams’s favor.”
(You can all kill me, but I know from Jeff’s writing that he cares.)
Cares about what?
Being GC…Grammatically Correct
For some reason I looked this up and you are wrong, at least according to AP style:
SINGULAR PROPER NAMES ENDING IN S: Use only an apostrophe: Achilles’ heel, Agnes’ book, Ceres’ rites, Descartes’ theories, Dickens’ novels, Euripides’ dramas, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life, Jules’ seat, Kansas’ schools, Moses’ law, Socrates’ life, Tennessee Williams’ plays, Xerxes’ armies.
True, that is AP style. And I usually follow them, mainly because their rule is usually the simplest and easiest to remember. But in this case the opposite is true — their distinction between proper nouns and common nouns seems arbitrary and needlessly complicating.
Since when did this become a grammar blog… baseball, anyone?
Personally, I think your way should be the rule, but technically either way is correct.
Do you guys have a bet going on Hosmer’s contract and everybody has the under? Holiday bonus on the line or something?
The moral of the story: don’t be mean to Eno.
Adams has always been considered an above average defensive first baseman (despite his size), at least here in St. Louis. He just can’t be counted on to play anywhere other than 1B.
Also, people seem to be forgetting that the Nats have team control over Adams for two years (made even more significant by the age advantage) versus just the one they’d have had with Lind had his option been exercised on both ends.
Adams will be a free agent at the end of 2018.
Adams will cross the 6.000 service time threshold this season. He came up in 2012.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/matt-adams-and-beating-the-eye-test/
There not really that similar tho. Lind is a far better hitter. Check out the OBP difference. Adams a better defender. With Zimm injury history perhaps defense was a higher priority.
For what it’s worth, I watched a lot of Adams in the minors while scoring for a statistics company. My partners and I thought he was pretty good defensively, especially with his soft hands and quick reactions.
I’ll say this, Adams is just one sneeze away from Ryan Zimmerman tearing his oblique or a throw away from further butchering that “arm” of his, and possibly not being able to play anything but DH. Watching the Nats on tv everyday, few Nats fans looked on Zimms resurgence with any belief its going to carry on into this year.
He basically turned into twice the hitter he ever was for 3 months before slumping bad enough to make it all look above average-good in the end. Also that watching him make “throws”, eek. He must be in so much pain
I’ve seen Adams play a lot and he always seemed to pass the eye test to me.
Love the articles about the players that are not stars.
It is an accomplishment just to make a living as a professional ball player.
The explanation is that defensive metrics are garbage… I think Ill take the opinions of 50+ MLB managers/GM’s who are there watching the actual games 162 times a year over someone who has never played punching nonsensical formulas into a computer
Then you’ve come to the wrong place.
Funny how you all think you’re smarter than the people actually being paid to, you know, evaluate on field talent. I know the truth hurts. Sorry guys.
Subjective opinions of “experts” matter, but we have a
figurative mountain of historical evidence that MLB managers and general managers frequently get things wrong.
The people who produce defensive metrics and player projections, and those who write for FanGraphs and other sites, are also “actually being paid to, you know, evaluate on field talent.”