Stacey King -> RE: Players and prospects III (10/21/2014 2:20:26 PM)
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Back To The Start For Adam October 18, 2014 by Phil Miller MINNEAPOLIS—Most prospects go to the Arizona Fall League to receive extra training against top-caliber opposition. Righthander Jason Adam is headed there to undo some training he received this season. Acquired from the Royals for Josh Willingham in an August waiver trade, Adam moved to the bullpen midway through 2014 while at Triple-A Omaha in the Kansas City system. The Twins immediately moved the 23-year-old back to the rotation. “Normally, it’s really hard to move someone from a one- or two-inning guy to a 100-pitch starter, and we would be less likely to try it if he’d been in the bullpen for long,” vice president for player personnel Mike Radcliff said. “But he was still stretched out pretty good when we got him, and we really like him as a starter.” So the Twins told Adam, a fifth-round pick in 2010 who signed out of high school in Overland Park, Kan., to forget the three-times-a-week pitching regimen that the Royals instituted in July, and focus instead on absorbing innings. “I understand why the Royals moved him—they thought they might need him in the (big league) bullpen down the stretch of a pennant race,” Radcliff said. “But we wanted the guy who throws strikes, gets a lot of sink on his pitches and has a couple of breaking balls he can mix in.” Despite reliably strong strikeout-to-walk ratios, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound Adam has become more inconsistent as he has climbed the ladder, but the Twins hope that has more to do with his age than his ceiling. Adam posted a 5.13 ERA in a season and a half at Double-A Northwest Arkansas, but in his final start in the Royals system, he pitched seven shutout innings. “He’s got all the weapons you’d need to be a reliable mid-rotation guy,” Radcliff said. “For some reason, he just doesn’t use them every time out, so we’re going to work with him on that.” TWIN KILLINGS • Lefthander Mason Melotakis will not play in the AFL and may require surgery to repair the unlar collateral ligament in his elbow, the Twins said. A second-round pick in 2012 whose fastball touches 97 mph, he missed much of August with elbow soreness. • The Twins dismissed a pair of minor league pitching coaches: Gary Lucas at high Class A Fort Myers and Ethan Wassermann in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League.
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