T10YL - Josh Willingham for Jason Adam
A guy drafted in 2000 gets swapped for a star of the 2024 Trade Deadline
August 11, 2014
The Names: Kansas City Royals receive: Josh Willingham. Minnesota Twins receive: Jason Adam.
The Team Context: Sometimes the trade deadline just comes too soon. On July 29, the Kansas CIty Royals were something of playoff longshots. Their record was 53-52, positioning them five games behind the Tigers in the AL Central and 3.5 behind the Blue Jays for the second AL Wild Card spot. Between July 30 and August 11, the Royals went 11-1. Suddenly, the Royals were 64-53 and 2.5 games up on the Blue Jays, which wasn’t even relevant because they were also a half game up on the Tigers in the AL Central.
The Royals had mostly let the July trade deadline come and go, with the exception of the trade where they randomly acquired a yet-to-succeed Liam Hendriks and gave up Danny Valencia. The situation had changed so dramatically in the past 12 games that the Royals felt compelled to look into whichever buying opportunities were available.
The Twins were on their way to a forgettable season in the basement, but had a nice time at the July trade deadline selling players who they had picked up earlier that year.
The Player Context: Josh Willingham had a solid MLB career and the type of Wikipedia page that suggests it’s at least somewhat autobiographical. The Florida Marlins drafted Willingham in 2000 out of the University of North Alabama, a school whose only other major league alumni are Jim Czajowski and Terry Jones. The Marlins took their time with Willingham’s development, advancing him at a rate of roughly one minor league level per season, but gave him brief big league cameos in 2004 and 2005. Willingham’s Wikipedia page notes that the Marlins had a tough time figuring out where Willingham could play on the field, “as his advanced hitting abilities did not allow him the opportunity to develop defensively.” A skeptic might counter that Willingham had several seasons in the minor leagues during which he could have developed defensively, if that were ever in the cards for him.
Empirically, the Marlins did seem to struggle with Willingham’s defensive position. He played shortstop at North Alabama, but played most of his games at catcher during his 2004 and 2005 MLB stints. In the 2005 offseason, the Marlins underwent what Willingham’s Wikipedia euphemistically calls a “market correction” (quotation marks included) and what I’ve tended to call a “fire sale.” That opened up a spot in left field for Willingham, and he played 132 games there in 2006 and received Rookie of the Year votes in his first full season (actually one singular Rookie of the Year vote, but still). He kept up the good work in 2007 and kept it up on a rate basis in 2008, even though he only played 102 games as a result of a back injury.
I won’t keep this up year-by-year because Willingham’s results are exhaustingly consistent. The teams changed, as Willingham was traded to the Nationals after the 2008 season and then to Oakland after the 2010 season, but the production was the same everywhere. Fueled by undeniable home run power, Willingham would keep an OPS in the mid .800s, which would rank out about 20% better than league average by OPS+, and would do so while playing left field with sufficient mediocrity to leave his WAR total at 2 point something for the season. Rinse and repeat. When he entered free agency as a 32-year-old coming off a career-high 29 home runs, teams had a clear idea of what to expect from him. Ten teams reached out to express interest in Willingham by November 5 of his free agency period, though that number had somehow fallen to nine by December 5.
The Twins prevailed in the small-scale sweepstakes and signed Willingham to a 3-year contract that paid him $7 million per year prior to 2012. Somehow, this was the largest free agent contract in Twins history and Minnesota immediately got more than they bargained for. Willingham hit a home run off old friend Troy Patton in his first game as a Twin, the first of a 15-game hitting streak to open the season. By the time the streak came to a close, Willingham had already hit five home runs and was well on his way to a new career-high of 35. This would end up being the best season of Willingham’s career, with his Silver Slugger award representing the only individual award he won in MLB, but the only real difference between 2012 and his prior six seasons was about ten more home runs. “Ten more home runs” is a substantial enough benefit to a hitter that it shouldn’t be laughed off as nothing, but it’s also a number that comes close to fitting within a margin for error. Willingham was still the same type of player, just performing closer to his ceiling.
Willingham got off to another strong start in 2013, but made the ill-advised decision to steal a base in the 8th inning of an April 27 game that the Twins were leading 4-0. Willingham succeeded and scored a run, but there were two drawbacks to the decision (1) the next three batters after the steal got hits and Willingham certainly would’ve scored anyways, and (2) he went into second base awkwardly and hurt his knee. After that game, Willingham had a slash line of .254/.397/.542. Two months of injury-marred play later, the numbers had declined to .218/.349/.393. A couple of days later, Willingham underwent arthroscopic knee surgery that kept him out until August. It’s not clear if that helped, as he ended the season with a .208/.342/.368 line that represented a rare departure from what had been a consistently productive career.
Willingham’s bounceback potential in 2014 was hampered when old friend Justin Masterson hit him with a pitch in the sixth game of the season and fractured his wrist. He returned with a vengeance in late May and had an OPS above 1.000 as late as June 11, but things declined from there. Two months later, his OPS sat at .747 and he was on his way out of Minnesota.
Jason Adam was drafted out of the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park’s “Blue Valley Northwest High School” in the fifth round of the 2010 draft. Adam was the first baseball player drafted from Blue Valley Northwest in the school’s 17-year history, but was the second player drafted from a “Blue Valley High School” in the 2010 draft (Ryne Stanek went in the third round). The hometown kid had worked through the minors as a starter, but started seeing tough results when he hit AA in 2013. Adam’s MLB Pipeline scouting report entering the season described his fastball as above-average and his new slider as “at least Major League-average,” but noted that his command would need to improve to maximize his potential. The blurb also noted that “there’s been some talk of Adam being a reliever, and that fastball-slider combination would play very well in short relief.” The Royals decided to figure this out for themselves – after another rough go-around at AA to start the season, Adam was promoted to AAA and started working out of the bullpen with greater success in a small sample.
The Trade: Trade speculation followed Josh Willingham throughout his MLB career. As soon as he was established with the Marlins, teams began fishing to see if the famously spendthrift team would be willing to trade him away. The day after his first game in Washington, Jayson Stark reported that the Rays had tried to trade for Willingham earlier that spring, with GM Mike Rizzo publicly making Willingham available less than two months later. The two years in Washington were littered with speculative interest from other teams, and when Willingham finally ended up in Oakland, he was greeted with July reports that he “[was] going to be traded at some point.” Willingham had only been traded twice in his career by the time he got to Minnesota, but it seems like nearly every front office tried to trade for him at some point.
This adds some irony to the June 1, 2012 report that “there’s been a surprising amount of trade talk surrounding Twins outfielder Josh Willingham.” On one hand, it would certainly be surprising for a team to trade a player in the first year of a three-year contract they signed him to last winter, particularly when that player is having the best season of his career. On the other hand, the only amount of Josh Willingham trade talk that should’ve been surprising by 2012 would be “none” given that every MLB organization had considered trading for him at some point. Every couple of months, there would be a new surge of stories noting that multiple teams were interested in Josh Willingham and that Minnesota still didn’t want to trade him. Things came closer in 2013, when Willingham was placed on waivers and claimed by the Orioles, but no trade came to fruition.
There’s a sad corollary to this, which is that every time Josh Willingham approached the end of his time with a team he told everyone that he didn’t want to leave. In July of 2010, Willingham spoke of his desire to remain a Washington National. “I like it here a lot,” Willingham said. “I’m really comfortable with the organization. I like everybody involved, teammates, everything.” In November, Mike Rizzo publicly rejected the concept of an extension and said “I think we’re going to take him one year at a time, like we’ve been doing,” before trading him to Oakland a month later. In July of 2011, Willingham told Susan Slusser that he’d be open to discussing an extension with Oakland and in September his agent approached the team with multi-year contract proposals, but was rejected because spending decisions were on hold until the team’s stadium situation was resolved (the situation still is not resolved and the A’s still don’t spend money). As Willingham headed into the final season of his Twins contract, he once again issued a plea for stability. “I do love playing in Minnesota, I would love to stay here for another year or so,” said Willingham, while also noting that his wife and children loved the Twin Cities. Willingham is also quoted as saying he “would never” approach a front office about an extension, which is either an egregious lie or only true on a technicality.
For a moment, it seemed like Willingham had a shot of sticking around. On July 30, Mike Berardino reported that the Twins planned to hold Willingham through the trade deadline. Earlier that day, Jerry Crasnick had reported that the Royals weren’t interested in acquiring Willingham. Two weeks later, everyone had changed their mind and Willingham was headed to Kansas City. It’s not clear why the Twins wanted to hold Willingham through the July trade deadline only to flip him to a division rival two weeks later, but getting Jason Adam back in exchange was still seen as a quality piece of business.
Willingham’s final series in Minnesota was a four-game set at the Coliseum, which he capped off by hitting a home run against Oakland. His first series in Kansas City was a three-game home set against the A’s. Do you think the A’s let Willingham ride to Kansas City on the team plane? They probably would’ve if he hadn’t hit the home run. The next series for the Royals was at Minnesota, which was probably super convenient in case he left a phone charger in the clubhouse or something.
The Results: Jason Adam made his MLB debut for the Royals in 2018, which means we can quickly decide this trade in their favor. Adam only ended up throwing 7 innings in the Twins’ system to end the 2014 season, then missed the next two seasons. A profile by Maria Torres ahead of Adam’s 2018 debut includes the phrase “doctors had to go back into his elbow for a fourth surgery prior to the 2015 season – this one placed one screw that still holds the once-fractured elbow together,” which effectively summarizes Adam’s time in the Twins organization.
Willingham was an above-average hitter in the 24 games he played in Kansas City even if he didn’t quite deliver what was expected. Acquired to add pop to the Royals, he managed just two home runs and missed time with a groin injury. On September 25, Mike Berardino reported that Willingham had told people close to him he was “100 percent retiring,” a claim which was quickly refuted but turned out to be correct. Willingham contributed in the playoffs with a pinch hit single in the Wild Card game, after which he was immediately pinch-ran for by Jarrod Dyson, who scored. It was the first playoff game of Willingham’s career and his final MLB hit, with outs recorded in each of his remaining three plate appearances.
The Royals ended up going on a tear through the playoffs, winning every game they played against an AL team as they knocked out the A’s, Angels, and Orioles without taking a counterpunch. They would’ve won the World Series if not for known washout Madison Bumgarner, who is mostly remembered by baseball fans for tricking the Diamondbacks into giving him a huge contract, violating the terms of that contract by pseudonymously competing in rodeos, and then being so horrible at pitching that the Diamondbacks gave him $23 million to go away. He’s also remembered for Max Muncy hitting a home run against him into McCovey Cove and then yelling at him to “go get it out of the ocean.” Nobody remembers anything else about Madison Bumgarner’s career. Certainly nothing in 2014.
The Aftermath: Willingham took his time finalizing a decision on his career and received a “substantial” offer from a contender, but ultimately decided to retire on November 24. “I’m honored to have played for as many years as I have, and I feel even luckier to walk away on my own terms instead of having the decision made for me,” Willingham said. In 2021, Willingham accepted a position as head baseball coach at his alma mater of Mars Hill Bible School in Alabama. I can’t confirm that he’s still the coach, but his wife is a faculty member teaching family and consumer science so I assume he’s still there too.
With all respect to Josh Willingham, he’s not the exciting aftermath here. Jason Adam crawled from the smoldering crater of his exploded elbow (not sure these metaphors work in combination) to sign a minor-league contract with the Padres in 2017, making a few appearances before he was released in August. Seeing an opportunity to certify victory of their Josh Willingham trade, the Royals signed him a few days later. Now firmly a reliever, Adam made his aforementioned 2018 debut and was pretty bad, with a 6.12 ERA across 31 MLB appearances and peripherals that suggested the unsightly number was deserved. Adam played internationally in 2019 (with the Toronto Blue Jays) and then signed with the Cubs, where he spent the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The latter season was interrupted by an extremely gruesome injury that induced concern that Adam might lose his foot after he fractured and dislocated his ankle while fielding pre-game fly balls in AAA. The doctors couldn’t put him under anesthesia because of all the shock-induced adrenaline pumping through his body. The Cubs released Adam like three days after that injury, which seems really unkind, but re-signed him later that year to make amends.
Adam was non-tendered after the 2021 season and seemed likely to sign a minor league contract somewhere, as had been his custom the last few times he was cut loose. Instead, the Rays signed Adam to a major league deal. That proved to be a great call for all parties — Adam immediately became a bedrock in an always-dominant Tampa Bay bullpen, setting a new career-high with 63.1 innings and a new career-low with a 1.56 ERA as he tied for the team lead in saves. This newfound performance continued through the 2023 and 2024 seasons, at which point the always-trading Rays knew it was time to cash in. Adam made his return to the Padres at this year’s trade deadline in exchange for three prospects (Homer Bush Jr., J.D. Gonzalez, and Dylan Lesko). He’s kept up the strong performance in San Diego so far, but check back in 9.75 years to see how that one turned out.
Miscellaneous: Speculation about George W. Bush repurchasing the Texas Rangers. A July 30, 2009 post titled “Josh Willingham Not Traded.” There’s a Blue Valley, Blue Valley North, Blue Valley Northwest, Blue Valley Southwest, and Blue Valley West and people still think it’s inappropriate to make fun of Kansas. The A’s drafted Scott Boras’s son during their one year in the Josh Willingham business.