Josh Willingham Traded To Royals for Minor League Pitcher

Wow you are all acting like this is a God send move and Ryan has done an amazing job this season. These trades have been good. Let's not get carried away with the "normal tr standards" stuff. He's still part of the reason they are in this mess.

 

Anyway. I'm happy for Willingham and the royals. I'll be pulling for them the rest of the season. It will be nice to have fresh blood in the playoffs. They have the pitching to do well, and Willingham will help them score runs. I thought this would be a good fit a few weeks back.

I think Ryan has done pretty damn well overall, I give him an A- for the trades he has been able to make this year, and a A- for the trades he has made in the past 2 years to help bolster this teams future (see: May/Meyer) and a B or B+ for the Free agents he was able to bring in this year. Hughes has been a great success and will be a key moving forward, the Suzuki signing was perfect this year (the extension is TBD but still a very low risk move IMO) Snagging Fuld and then flipping him was great. I am still a fan of the Nolasco signing, hopefully he can be healthy from here on out and earn his contract. The Pelfrey signing is a bust at this point, but I think he has a shot to be at least a bullpen arm for us (a high upside one potentially at that) and its not like he is breaking the bank.

I am very excited to see what TR can do this off-season, he has a decent amount of cash and less theoretical holes to fill as the rotation has 7 or 8 guys ready for the start of 2015 (Hughes, Gibson, Milone, Nolasco, Meyer, May, Pino etc) and SS, catcher, 3B and CF all are have or have someone on the way very quickly. Just need to figure out how to get a nice corner OF in the mix.

I like the move. I was hoping more lower minors, but this kid has a ceiling and is more of a buy low type guy. Trevor May was a buy low guy, and bad debut aside, he looks promising. Worst case, another solid option. Best case, an above average starter. I'll take it.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/royals-add-righty-thumper-willingham/

Baseball America's article goes into pretty good depth on Adam but I'd point out one thing:

"Adam’s success or failure is largely tied to his delivery. When he gets too upright in his delivery and gets too mechanical he leaves his fastball up, it straightens up and becomes quite hittable. He has three games of seven or more runs allowed this year and he had five games of seven runs or more allowed last year.

But when he drives off the mound and gets extension, he gets just as much if not more velocity (92-95 mph) and generates good sink on his fastball while locating down in the zone. Adam added a slider this year, although at its best, his downer curveball is more effective and is usable both as a strike early in the count or as a bigger breaker when he’s ahead of hitters."

May had a similar problem when we got him - while tall he pitched short and the ball came in high on a straight plane, letting hitters square up better and/or letting the ball fly out of the zone.  It took a couple years, and repeating AA, but May has gotten a lot better with that.  Perhaps the Twins see a similar tweek in Adam and can turn him into a solid starter.  BA also wrote that "The Twins are getting a great lottery ticket. At his best, Adam shows two plus pitches (his fastball and curveball) as well as an average changeup and a slider that could develop into an average pitch and he does it all with potentially average control."

We have three more seasons where we can stash him in the minors while he works on mechanics/control.  

No doubt they try to make him a starter. I say go hire the Pirates' pitching coaches to do it....

I really do hope TR has another trade or two in the works for some bullpen arms... at this point, I'd be happy with cash considerations as the team needs to get guys like Tonkin up and getting PT.

Jason Adam slid from being the 9th best prospect to the 16th best in KC. I'm wondering if he's even the 16th best PITCHER in our system. 

 

Where does he slot in?

 

1. Meyer

2. Stewart

3. Berrios

4. Thorpe

5. May

6. Burdi

7. Tonkin

8. Jorge

9. Romero

10. Goncalves

 

And then, lots of guys more comparable to him? Which of these guys would you have given up for him? Gilmartin, Hu, Darnell, Johnson, Olivares, Rosario, Jiminez, Landa, Cedaroth, Rogers, Duffy, Lee, Jones, Melotakis, Eades, Slegers, Wheeler, Reed...

 

Who's his best comp among our prospects?

Adam just turned 23 a week ago.  Though he's perceived to have taken a step back in 2014, look at what the Royals did for him.  They moved him to AAA as a reliever, and he's had some very good success in the hit-happy PCL.

I think the comp here is not that far off from Trevor May. Let's compare Adam's age-22 year in AA this season with May's 22-year old season with the Phillies AA club:

Trevor May ERA/FIP/SIERA 4.87/4.88/4.00

Jason Adam ERA/FIP/SIERA 5.03/3.65/3.74 

Trevor May WHIP 1.45 K/9 9.1  BB/9 4.7

Jason Adam WHIP 1.39 K/9 8.1 BB/9 2.7

Trevor May  BABIP .300   Slash line:  .219/.350/.410/.760

Jason Adam BABIP ..338  Slash line:  .281/.336/.419/.755

Trevor May repeated three times, at the A level, A+ level and the AA level.  Jason Adams has only repeated AA, and even that involved a promotion to AAA, although in a relief role.  I think if the Twins can continue the process of teaching Adams how to "pitch" to avoid more bats, the guy has demonstrated that he has projectabiliy- solid control, a decent FB between 91 and 95, touching 97 and a good slider.  For Adams to reach his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter like May also projects, the Twins also have to help him develop a more effective third pitch.

As you can tell, I am high on Adam's potential.

Jokin, Adam and May are nowhere even close to each other. First of all in your comparison May struck out 1 per 9 better and walked almost double the batters.... yet had similar results. That tells me he has better stuff, but control was an issue. Also, May had a k/9 of 12 the previous season. These two are not comparable, May is/was a much better prospect. 

 

That doesn't take away that Adam has a shot to be an MLB pitcher.  Swarzak struck out more guys than he did in the lower minors. However, looking at their age 22 season and Swarzak's next few seasons, they don't look like much. Swarzak really grew after a few seasons with the Twins, so Adam certainly could do that. 

No question that May has better stuff, but as we saw on Saturday, control is always going to be a major issue for him.  I merely demonstrated very similar results for the two pitchers to this point in time.  My point was that Adam is likely not simply to be dismissed as merely the "#16 Twins pitching prospect" in the system.  K rates are an important indicator of success, but shouldn't be considered strictly in a vacuum. Unlike May and Swarzak who have seen progressive declines in K rates in their minor league careers, to the contrary, Adam, as a starter, has increased his K/9 rate for 5 straight years, even as he has continued to climb the minor league levels.  To this point, Adam has both superior K/9 and BB/9 rates to Swarzak's AA total.  Swarzak took a noticeable dropoff in AAA- his K/9 was 5.5 and BB/9 was 2.7. May was 8.6-K/9 and 3.6-BB/9 in AAA this year.  Based on his history of year over year improvements at sucessive levels, Adam has a decent shot to beat or match both the K/BB numbers of May and Swarzak when he gets his shot at Rochester in 2015.  With the results that Adam has gotten to this point in time, with his control already firmly established, it suggests that he has a decent shot to get to the similar ceiling to May with proper development from the Twins staff.  He is going to have to get that third pitch going to keep hitters from sitting on his flattish fastball, missing bats, not lack of control, looks like it's going to be Adam's main focus for improvement.  

After checking this a little further, this is what most analysts suggest, ie, that of mid-rotation starter ceiling.  This was a good trade, certainly not like Revere for Worley/May, but not Liriano for Hernandez/Escobar.  This guy has a legitimate shot at a career well above Swarzak mop-up level.