New Phillies reliever Adams says 2012 was a struggle
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New Phillies reliever Adams says 2012 was a struggle
Bob Brookover, Inquirer Baseball Columnist
The Phillies officially announced the signing of free-agent reliever Mike Adams to a two-year, $12 million deal Thursday. The contract also includes a vesting option for 2015, which is a lot of money for a guy who admits last season was a physical struggle.
Adams, 34, is expected to take the role as closer Jonathan Papelbon's setup man next season. He has been one of the best eighth-inning relievers in the game since 2008, posting a 1.98 earned run average while striking out 311 batters in 295 innings.
The veteran righthander posted a 5-3 record with one save and an uncharacsterically high 3.27 earned run average in his only full season with the Texas Rangers last year. He was shut down for the final week of the season and underwent surgery in October for a condition known as Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
"Last year was a struggle for me," Adams said. "The TOS was something that kicked in in early April. I didn't know what was happening. I thought I was just having some shoulder discomfort issues. The majority of the season I battled not having the same stuff I had previously.
"I didn't have a good feel for the ball. There were times when I didn't know how to grip a fastball because I didn't have the feel. That's the symptoms of TOS. By the end of the year, it really caught up to me. My arm felt like it weighed five or six pounds more than it normally did. The ball felt like it weighed three pounds."
Adams surrendered three home runs in a five-batter span in his final appearance of the season against Oakland after allowing only one home run in his previous 60 games.
"My last outing, I felt like I was pitching a shot put," he said. "The toughest part was the mental part. I was trying to fix my mechanics and I was trying to fix everything. Once I knew that I had TOS, it was a huge relief after talking to (Rangers teammate) Matt Harrison and knowing that he told me I was going to feel great after (surgery). The trainer for Texas told me that once I get a few weeks into the rehab process I'm going to feel like I have a new arm."
Adams said the rehab process has gone well so far. He thought he'd be ready for the start of spring training. He admitted that he is more concerned about being ready for the April 1 opener in Atlanta. The surgical procedure involved removing a rib.
"It’s the first rib, which is below the clavicle," Adams said. "So what happens is that first rib starts squeezing the clavicle. You have a main artery and a nerve that runs through there, so when you start squeezing those, that nerve starts shooting pain through your body. I was having headaches constantly for three weeks. My trap was hurting, my pec, the middle of my back was hurt. I was having some numbness and tingling in my bicep and forearm and it was something that was pretty bad.
"Once I had the surgery to take care of it, some of the shoulder pain was gone within two days. It took a little while longer for a lot of the other symptoms to go away, but they said in time it will. They say the nerves have been so freaked out that they needed time to recover. It wasn’t until about three or four weeks ago that I really started to feel the symptoms go away."
Shortly after the winter meetings, the Phillies sent special assistant Charley Kerfeld to watch Adams throw. The righthander obviously passed the physical administered by the Phillies Thursday and general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. acknowledged the risk involved.
"There is no question that there is some risk involved," Amaro said. "As a group, we talked to our people about the TOS and how that might affect him short term and long term, but I think ultimately we feel comfortable enough and felt comfortable with the procedure and the follow-up information that we got. While there is some risk to it, it probably was a good risk. This is a guy who can solidify our bullpen."
- You obviously misunderstood. Stats only support my argument but I don't need them to tell me Oswalt helped the Phils. Next question!
— vafan - definition of sanctimonious hypocrite:
Vafan: "Your strategy ... obnoxious adjectives, not facts, ... is so childish. I am literally lol-ing right now. .... how old are you?"
"You are incapable of a debate without name calling which leads me to believe you are a juvenile"— warbiscuit - Vafan: "you deliberately spew lies as Oswalt didn't have an awful 2011 nor a bad era.. Your strategy of .....using obnoxious adjectives, not facts..."
"I'm not a stat guy but I looked it up just for you"
"I don't need stats to tell me"...
Oswalt 2011: 10-11 3.69 era
yes facts and stats can be inconvenient, so if you don't like them call the ones using them a "liar" and use alternative insults ("juvenile" "lol")..
thou doth protest too much, you ignorant sanctimonoious fraud
vafan: "I don't need stats— warbiscuit - Not sure what you mean here. Are you standing by your comment that 10-11, 3.69 era is "awful"? Did I hurt your feelings by calling you out? Can you still not present a decent argument without name calling? — vafan
- Warbiscuit, your insane amount of posts that bash everything are both pointless and mind boggling. And still waiting for your great plan of what shoulda been done. As in present and future moves. Enough with the past.
Do you work, are you in school. Unemployed and out of your lithium. Just gotta know with all these endless redundant posts where you find the time. Dazzle us with your age, job and reason to go on and on... We get it, everyone sucks and can do know wrong. Do you enjoy annoying 95% of those who actually appreciate baseball. Clearly you don't, and I'm quite sure with your paranoia with management that if you had a boss you mouthed off and were fired so let's here it. What do you do oh wise one. And why not just GO AWAY. Your posts are the least intelligent on any board I've ever read, and an embarrassment to the human race. GO AWAY troll. Seriously. Leave the board.— WFChamps - What do you do dope. Enlighten us and don't deflect the question as usual— WFChamps
- vafan: "I think it was smoothlic that had you at 50%. So, you're average" ..
actually if I list 40 awful Rube errors, and a Rube-defender concedes that 50% of then were indeed awful then that just means that there were at least 20 awful moves ..the other 20 weren't "good" moves, just "defensible" according to those who disagree with me,,, and I assert thate all 40 were indefensible and i could easily list another 20 if i wanted to (but didn;t want to get sidetracked into whether, for example, the Rollins or Kendrick deals will prove to be bad or good, so didn't list them).. but you're not a "facts" or stats guy, we know and you don't like insults other than "liar" and "juvenile" becuase they sound more mature than El Dopey or Stool as used by some of your fellow apologists for incompetence— warbiscuit - In hindsight, smoothellc gave you way too much credit. I didn't need to read your post and already know you were less than that. BTW - you don't need any more time to recognize the Rollins deal. He has already outperformed it. Not a facts guy? Did I say that? There you go again. Never called you a liar, I said you spew lies. Purely a factual observation, not an insult. Never called you juvenile, said your name calling led me to believe you were a juvenile then I flat out asked how old you were because I truly think you are a juvenile, as in younger than 18. Credibility, man. Look at gaining some. — vafan
- While @warbiscuit is quite the prolific writer, he's 100% correct on two fronts: 1) Many very good prospects were squandered in bad trades that in the end made this team weaker and much older, and 2) The Howard contract extension with 2 years to go on his previous contract was completely asinine. The value of that contract was ridiculous even BEFORE he began his downward spiral. This was the absolutely worst contract in Phillies history. That contract will continue to stink even worse with each passing year. Buyers remorse at the very highest level. If healthy, we'll be fortunate to get 35/125/.264 (with his usual 190 or > SOs) from him this season, and that may indeed be wishful thinking.— joemotrucks
- in my view, you can only complain about the howard contract if you complained as soon as it was signed. when signed, it looked like phils got howard at market value when some people were projecting 30 million dollar players.
say one thing- sure glad you guys aren't in the dugout. all this negativity won't do anything to help howard have a good season. - "in my view, you can only complain about the howard contract if you complained as soon as it was signed."
Don't be silly.
A couple things, when the deal was signed, most thinking people said "good for Howard, but why would Amaro sign the deal two years early, there are too many risks". Those people were right.
The Pence & Oswalt deals seemed good at the time, but on reflection, Oswalt's poor physical health (which the GM should be smart enough to know) made this a bad deal from the start. And Oswalt did nothing to help the Phillies that year except you could claim he was an inning eater.
In hindsight very few of Amaro's deals worked, and the Phillies are a mess right now. It will take 4 more years to dig out of this hole.— fmMD - Adams chose phillies over the nationals. check hot stove and the nats were the other nl east team looking at Adams.
- note: I conceded numerous timesthat Phls got 2 good months out of each of Oswalt (Aug-Sept 2010) and Pence (aug-sept 2011).. but they would have made post-season without them and Oswalt and Pence were bad in post-seasons failures in 2010 and 2011, so not worth the 7 prospects (6 of them highly ranked)... moreover, for the hundredth time, with any kind of foresight wahtsoebver, NEITHER deal was even necessary --rube was expected to sign an outfielder to replace Werth before 2011, not trade top prospects in panic move for Pence mid-season, and rube could have kept Myers or acquired another starter before 2010 even if he were so hel-bent at discarding Lee -and wouldn't have needed Oswalt— warbiscuit
- In both cases, Amaro was trying to win the world f'in championship not just make the postseason. When you are in that position, you go for it. Even in hindsight they were good moves considering the motivation. — vafan
- that's all folks --wchamps - what I "do" is spit out objective baseball anaylysis when sportwiriters in this town don't do their job; I don't generally respond to insults and stupidity unless it's phrased in a really sanctimonious manner like vafan, so sorry you dont get a real response becuase your insults don't sound sophisticated enough— warbiscuit
