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."
Hey PEACEMUFFIN! Here you go with your cut and paste. Put your moves out there. Show us what your genius would produce. Any nimrod can criticize 20/20. Better yet, go root for the Mets and eliminate the clutter on these boards.— cuyatm- This guy needed to be evaluated by a Chiropractor first before getting cut. I have a feeling this is not the last we heard of his arm pain. Here we go again!— drantonio1
- Let's complain and whine over every thing the GM does because we have to do that to feel involved in the Phils.
Fans in this town are know-it-all and pathetic in their constant over-evaluation and criticism of every franchise and its coaches and executives. Be grateful for the many years of highly competitive baseball we have had here.— hankhammer2 - @Cuyatm --don't usually respond to unqualified morons -- so you'll probably not get more -- but I' m feeling generous,and this won't take long:
"Here you go with your cut and paste." --actually this is new material --with data and stats - assembled last night becuse I see new sanctimonious moron "vafan" start his his nonsense about Pence and Oswalt disasters
"Show us what your genius would produce." --yes i did this last year, but what's the point -- is someone offering me a job as g.m.? let's make believe we're g.m. and get some vicarious pleasure from this... Rube plays this game, and he's losing...
"Any nimrod can criticize 20/20" ..but I have cut and pasted my postings from last year saying that Phils should sign Aramis Ramirez and get depth in bullpen instead of a single closer and was proven correct -- and 90% of everythign I've said for past several years has been proven accurate,not because I'm such a genius but becuase you know what, it really didn't take a genius to know that Phils needed offensive help, that Willis was a waste of time, and one coud buy a lottery ticket for $1, and that Lannan and Young have as much chance of being credible solutions as does that lottery ticket too— warbiscuit - what I actually posted LAST YR re meaningless deals: "1/16/12 yes inconsequential deal-- problem is NOT that they got Pineiro (or Willis for that matter)..problem is what they did NOT do -- all these meaningless bullpen and bench deals for low-cost garbage generally result in useless garbage (see,e.g. Baez, Schneider, Bruntlett, Herdon, Gload, etc) and Amaro has still failed to improve offense, bench and bullpen in 3 1/2 yrs - an intelligent g.m. does NOT max out his budget (as UncleStosh is correct on this score) by putting ALL his reliever budget into a single overrated and overpaid closer but instead gets multiple quality relivrs .. an intelligent g.m. does not put all his "offense" budget into a non-slugging so-called slugging 1st baseman with the rest of the offensive positions at best avg or below avg offensively and then can't afford a decent hitting 3rd baseman or any real quality on the bench, and major q's in the bullpen ... yes a team can get to the post-season just on the strength of its starting pitching but the Amaro method is 0 for 3 in October and I doubt the numbers will improve as the team is actually getting worse---meanwhile he has also squandered the Phils quality prospcts in his reckless manner of overspending for a few players, trading away all his prospects, while neglecting depth, balance, bench and bullpen ,etc and the proof is in the pudding as he has never won squat
Warbiscuit"— warbiscuit - I don't even presume to know whether or not Adams will be healthy... one would think that any orgnization, even not such a smart one, would be able to make this determination better than fans who don't have acces to medical records, prognosis,etc ... if Adams can be anywhere near what he used to be, that would obviously fill a need that the Phils have; if he can;t, and Phils didn't do their due diligence on his health, then they're even dumber than even I assume them to be— warbiscuit
- If you remove Adams' rib, don't you get Eve?— dasher
- Look at what Adams said, about the symptoms he was having, and then look back at what Bastardo was saying way back at the end of '11 as his season tanked. And again in '12. No feel for the ball, heavy arm, tired, fidgeting with mechanics, tipping pitches (lol) because he didn't know what else it could have been. His inconsistency through the minors and for all but 4 months of his ML career has been the same ailment as Adams. You would have thought that somebody on our side would have mentioned surgery to him to fix it? And why hasn't he done it yet? We have only more inconsistency coming from him in '13. How many games do we need to look at Bastardo's puzzled facial expression as he watches another 7th or 8th inning game tying HR sail out into the dark of night?— Mark1npt
- the same people complaining about adams are probably the same people complaining that Madson wasn't resigned last year.— palmyra21
- warbiscuit is right: in retrospect (since Oswalt and Pence are long-gone, as is Scheirholz), Rube gave up Villar, Gose, Happ, Singleton, Cosart, Santana, and Zeid (7 prospects, 6 highly rated) for non-prospects Joseph and Rosin and 1 win from Oswalt in 2010 post-season: All of those prospects are HOFers. btw, biscuit Joseph is the top catcher in the Phillies minors.— palmyra21
- yes, I am confident that Villar, Gose, Singleton, Cosart, Santana, Happ and Zeid would be valued by at least 29 out of 30 g.m.s as worth at least 25 times Joseph (and Rosin) who is not one of top 100 prospects in baseball, and is as highly valued as a $1 lottery ticket— warbiscuit
- Your assessment of talent is hardly credible. I will remind you of your chronic need to re-evaluate the Halladay trade- in which you stated the prospects dealt were blue-chip "Superstars"
Kyle Drabek: Chronic injury risk with a 8-15 record and a 5.34 ERA (Gads!)
Michael Taylor: Well, for all his tools that .176 BA and 56 PA's hardly qualifies as a "superstar"
Travis D'Arnaud: Jury still out, but *STILL* waiting for that very FIRST plate appearance...
..and JA Happ (35-35/ 4.69 ERA) who you cite above is the definition of "mediocre" and boasts a more inflated ERA that John Lannan!
Hope your stock portfolio is performing better then this bunch.
— Special Agent Fox Mulder - amaro should continue to strengthen the bullpen by picking up Howell. giants win because of their massive bullpen. seems like a good way to go.— high water
- Warbiscuit--sometimes you just try too hard. You just can not make this statement and maintain even a slight semblence of relevance.
***yes, I am confident that Villar, Gose, Singleton, Cosart, Santana, Happ and Zeid would be valued by at least 29 out of 30 g.m.s as worth at least 25 times Joseph (and Rosin)***
None of the seven you mention has done a thing to prove their value--in all honesty neither has Joseph--but to claim that 29 out of 30 would value them as 25X Joseph is way-way out there. Maybe the statment can be made in 5-10 years--maybe--it can not be made today.
Again--just because you repeat something over and over does not make it true.— Smoothellc - Forgot 2 things PEACEMUFFIN. One, you didn't put any of your moves out there for this year. And 2, why don't you go root for the Mets if the Phils are the most disgusting organization in 10 states according to you.— cuyatm
