Quote from LynchMob on March 4, 2025, 4:04 am

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6165015/2025/02/28/mlb-stealth-relievers-ryan-walker-jason-adam-cade-smith/

A rebuilt elbow and revamped arsenal for a repeat Padre

Jason Adam knows his way around the Peoria Sports Complex. This is his first spring training in the brown and gold of the San Diego Padres, but Adam had a locker here before almost any of his teammates.

“It was the navy blue Padres,” he said. “So there’s some new carpet, but other than that, it looks the same.”

Adam, a 33-year-old right-hander, spent six lonely months as Padres property in 2017. He had pitched for two organizations already and had just missed two seasons with elbow trouble. Adam expected to be ready for 2017, and so did the Padres. The elbow had other plans.

“They helped get me finally healthy — and then they released me when I got healthy, which was totally understandable,” Adam said. “Once you sign, they have to pay for rehab. So it was like: Rehab here, then I’m off the books. There were no hard feelings. My wife and I laughed when it happened because at that point we were like, ‘Whatever.’”

Baseball was telling Adam, emphatically, that he was not built for its brand of punishment. The stress fracture in his elbow required four surgeries: one to insert screws; another to remove them after the elbow swelled up; an arthroscopic procedure; and lastly, whatever else Dr. James Andrews could dream up.

“The fourth one, he kind of was like, ‘I’m just going to throw everything I’ve got at it,’” Adam said. “Stem cell from my hip, throw a big screw in there, put me on osteoporosis medicine. And then that just needed a little more time. Kinda crazy.”

The crazy part is what happened next. After learning a short-arm delivery from the Padres, which eased the pain in his elbow by creating a shortcut to raise his arm, Adam reached the majors in 2018 with his hometown Kansas City Royals, who had drafted him out of high school eight years earlier.

It was a proud moment — the Royals got his family a suite for his debut — but it started an era of shuffling on and off 40-man rosters. In four seasons with Kansas City, the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs, Adam had a 4.71 ERA. He was just another average major-league reliever — until the Tampa Bay Rays entered his life.

Picture a clunker sputtering in for a tune-up at an Indy 500 garage. That’s what happened to Adam, who signed with the Rays in March 2022, eager to turbocharge his career.

“I was so excited,” he said. “I was like, ‘I know you guys are good with pitching. What do you got? Feed me.’”

The Rays handed Adam an all-new menu. They loved his changeup, hated his curveball and turned his slider into a sweeper. They encouraged Adam to mix three pitches — changeup, sweeper and fastball — equally, instead of relying on his fastball about 60 percent of the time.

“And they said, ‘If he can just be ahead of hitters more often, he can be successful.’” Adam said. “It’s something every organization says — strike one — but they took the practical step of setting up the catcher down the middle, because I’m not a command guy.

“If you aim for the corner, you’re probably going to miss and it’s a ball. But if you aim for the middle, you’re probably going to miss the middle, which is good — but it’s going to be a strike. We all think we have better command than we do.”

Adam — whose fastball spin ranked at the 100th percentile last season — quickly became a force. He had a 2.30 ERA and an 0.881 WHIP in 170 games for the Rays, who dealt him to the Padres last July for three prospects. In 27 games with San Diego, Adam was even better, with a 1.01 ERA and an 0.788 WHIP.

This time, he is in no danger of being released.

“Now you’ve got a really polished guy who’s able to put together multiple pitches, gets righties and lefties out, doesn’t make the moment bigger than it is,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He’s taken all these experiences and accrued them and made the best version of himself.”