Veteran IF Matt Adams signs with American Association’s Kansas City Monarchs

The Kansas City Monarchs of the independent American Association announced yesterday they’ve signed first baseman Matt Adams. 

“We are very excited to have Matt as a part of our ball club for the 2022 season,” Monarchs manager Joe Calfapietra said as part of the team’s press release. “His ability, experience and presence is going to be extremely valuable to our organization. We are anxious to get started toward taking the steps to reach our 2022 goals.”

Adams released a statement of his own, via the team. 

“I am very excited to play in Kansas City — what drew my interest in the Monarchs was that Kansas City is a great sports town close to my home with great fans and the level of baseball the Monarchs play is top level. …  I wanted to continue to play the game I love and show that I can still be an impactful big-league player and get back to a major league club.”

Now 33 years old, Adams has appeared at the MLB level in each of the past 10 seasons. The bulk of that time was spent with the Cardinals, where he emerged as a fairly regular option at first base between 2013-16. Adams had an excellent .284/.335/.503 showing in 319 plate appearances in 2013, and he topped 20 homers as a part-time player every year between 2017-19 with the Cards, Braves and Nationals.

Adams has seen sporadic big-league time with Atlanta in 2020 and the Rockies last season. He didn’t produce in very brief looks with either team, and he didn’t catch on with an affiliated club after being released by Colorado in July. Nevertheless, Adams owns a slightly above-average .258/.306/.463 slash in more than 2,500 MLB plate appearances, serving primarily as a power bat against right-handed pitching. He’ll try to earn a return to the affiliated ranks with a strong showing in the American Association.