Willingham traded to royals

[DaveW]

Boom

[stringer bell]

Farewell, Hammer. It is time to see the young guys. Best wishes. It sounds like the Royals have an excellent chance to overtake the Tigers.

[TheLeviathan]

Huzzah!

[Mill1634]

Link please?  who was involved in the trade?

[gunnarthor]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/08/royals-acquire-josh-willingham.html

 

Twins get minor league pitcher Jason Adams - #16 on mlb.com's KC prospect list. 

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2014/#list=kc

Scouting Grades: Fastball: 65 | Curveball: 45 | Slider: 50 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50

The Royals like when they can find talent in their own backyard and they did so when they signed Adam away from Missouri in 2010.

While the move to Double-A in 2013 caused struggles initially, Adam improved tremendously as the year wore on. He has an above-average fastball and gained velocity in 2013, complementing it with a new slider, which should be at least Major League average. He throws a curve and a changeup, but both lag behind. He'll need to refine his command, especially with his offspeed stuff, in order to keep moving forward.

There's been some talk of Adam being a reliever, and that fastball-slider combination would play very well in short relief, but the strides he made have some believing the big right-hander still has the goods to start.

[TheLeviathan]

This guy.

[ashbury]

Jason Adam in return.  #11 on Sickels' list last spring.  A better get than I might have expected.

[twinssouth]

Fuld, Correia now Willingham. Twins aren't messing around. Who's next. Best of luck to you w

[Linus]

Any AA pitcher with a chance is a pretty good return for a month and a half of Hammer. Now we need to get rid of Burton and many poster's off season blueprint will be complete.

 

My vote to take Burton's place.......Lester Oliveros. He has been better than Tonkin and is still pretty young and throws hard.

[gunnarthor]

Adam seems like a nice gamble.  Worst case, as he's already in AAA at 23, he looks like a ML relief arm.  But he could be a (real) 4/5 starter.  Eats a lot of innings, good fastball/slider.  Needs a 3rd pitch but solid strike out and walk numbers.  Not perfect but could become a 200 inning, 100 ERA+ guy if it breaks right.

[Squirrel]

Continue the Willingham trade discussion here, in the article thread. Thanks!