The ‘Big City’ is coming back to the Atlanta Braves.
Some people just don’t really want to be Mets. And for the Atlanta Braves, that’s okay. After a brief in-and-out attempt to get Yasiel Puig for the end of their bench, the Braves have brought back lefty-hitting Matt Adams to work the end of their bench.
The #Braves today signed INF Matt Adams to a minor-league contract.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 20, 2020
The announcement of this deal indicates everything that didn’t ultimately happen with Puig: Adams is now post-physical and post-virus-testing… and both of these have evidently been successful tests from his perspective.
Adams is not yet on the Braves 40-man roster, but he is a member of the 60-man group and the expectation is that he’ll have a day or so to work toward those 40- and 30-man lists, the latter being the size of the active roster.
The likelihood of this is pretty high… which now makes the role of Yonder Alonso a bit more murky with just a couple of days remaining under hostilities commence.
Indeed, it was in that note about Alonso that Fred Owens noted Adams as a real possibility for the Atlanta Braves.
Adams, who will turn 32 years of age on the date of this year’s trade deadline has bounced around a bit since leaving St. Louis in 2017.
The Braves were his first destination, playing in 100 games (314 PA’s) that year and pounding out 19 homers as Freddie Freeman‘s substitute … well enough for Freeman to try a few stints at third base to keep Adams in the lineup.
Last year saw him as a member of the Nationals, hitting 20 homers in 111 games (333 PA’s). He has a fancy oversized ring as a result, though his batting average fell to .226.
No doubt, though, Adams is still a capable slugger and when he opted out of his Mets deal late last week, this seemed to be a fairly obvious reunion opportunity.
Now — ironically — he’s got a real chance of going back to Queens to open the 2020 season, but against those same Mets.