After a poor debut in 2012, Adams rebounded with a breakout season, albeit in a limited sample, in 2013. With Carlos Beltran leaving opens the door for Adams to have every day at-bats as Allen Craig will move to right field. The question is what will Adams do with a full season of at-bats? Craig has had problems staying healthy in his career and it’s no surprise he had the healthiest season of his career playing mostly at first base. There are two likely scenarios that are likely to play out: 1) the Cardinals allow Craig to play right field because they have Oscar Taveras waiting in the wings to set up when Craig hits the DL. 2) Adams is platooned at first with Craig. Specifically, Adams plays first against right handers while Craig plays right field. Against lefties Jon Jay plays right field and Craig plays first base.

The raw power is huge and the approach of the plate is conducive to sustain the contact necessary to not be a batting average sink (i.e. Ike Davis). That said, his aggressiveness can be exploited against good breaking stuff (.217 batting average against changeups, curveballs and sliders), which is true for most young hitters. Even though he has the raw power it’s unlikely to maintain the 23 percent HR/FB rate. Also, the .337 BABIP is likely to regress as the HR/FB regresses so the .284 batting average will likely to regress. Last year eight of 17 home runs came in September, which tells me his final home run numbers could be fluky. In September there are a lot of call ups and the competition gets diluted, which presents an opportunity to have inflated numbers at the end of the year. Therefore,  I only see Adams as a .265 hitter with about 25 home runs if he plays a full year, which puts him in a class with Kendrys Morales and Brandon Belt. Right he’s a super deep sleeper, but I think the hype train will come and by draft day, his increase his ADP to a point where he’ll no longer be a value.

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