On the surface, this may be confirmation bias after opining about Willy Adames needing to escape Tropicana Field in order to unlock his potential as a hitter. Prior to joining Milwaukee, he played in 332 games with the Rays accruing a bland .254/.320/.420 slash line with 43 home runs, 124 RBI and 13 stolen bases. When hot, he helped fantasy lineups but his troubling splits made him tough to roster for a full season outside of league-only formats. 

He could not hit in Tampa Bay. With such a disparity in his home and road splits stifling his potential upside, here's a look at his career numbers in each venue during his time with the Rays courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com: 

  • Home (Tampa Bay) - 171 games, 622 plate appearances, 62 runs, 21 doubles, 16 home runs, six stolen bases; .217/.275/.341 with a 7.4 walk percentage and 31.2 strikeout rate
  • Road (Tampa Bay) - 161 games, 95 runs, 32 doubles, 27 home runs, seven stolen bases; .293/.364/.500 with a 9.7 walk percentage and 28.7 strikeout rate

One cannot make this stuff up. Adames hit like Billy Hamilton with pop in home games then morphed into Jake Cronenworth clone on the road. For reference, over the last statistical 365 days, Cronenworth boasts a .285/.356/.477 slash with 16 home runs, 54 RBI and six stolen bases over 134 games. Pretty comparable. Except in terms of perception or draft capital. 

It's a small sample size, but as a Brewer, Adames owns a .279/.354/.504 slash with 17 runs, 11 doubles, six home runs, 24 RBI and two stolen bases in 36 games. Milwaukee's 26-10 since he joined the team entering game action on the last day of June. Looking solely at the slash numbers, these align very well with his road statistics cited above. There's also the wrinkle of an improved walk percentage (10.4 percent) and a reduced strikeout rate (24.3 percent) since his acquisition. Both better than his career road rates with the Rays. 

Overall, he's hitting .238/.304/.477 this season which remains a far cry from a breakout. However, factoring in he owned a .197 batting average with five home runs and 15 RBI in 41 games with Tampa Bay, it weighs down his results to this point. Starting with improved discipline, for the first time in his career Adames owns a positive runs produced in his Statcast swing and take profile:

When viewing the chart, he does better with pitches in the chase and waste zones than in the strike zone so far this season. However, he's increased his zone swing percentage and zone contact by four percent so far in 2021. Of course, his chase contact also ticks up, but he's overcome it with production as illustrated in the chart. Bigger news lies in his quality of contact along with using the center of the field with success. 

According to Statcast, Adames has produced 175 batted ball events with 22 barrels (12.6 percent) and upped his hard hit rate to 48 percent (7.5 percent higher than last season). Noting this takes his full season into account, his expected numbers back up his current numbers with a .242 expected batting average, .455 expected slugging and an expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) over his current wOBA by seven percentage points. Good, but not great. 

Transitioning to his batted ball results, Adames’ ground ball rate sits almost 10 points below last year at 35.4 percent while his fly ball rate jumps up by almost 20 percent to 34.3 this season. With less line drives, which coincides with his expected statistics above, there's room for improvement and the move to Milwaukee should ensure this. 

So far in 2021, he's pulling the ball less and hitting the ball more up the middle along with the opposite way. Again, this may relate to escaping the “Trop”. Noting all the statistics from the introduction, a story in four pictures using his spray chart data. First, here's Adames’ spray chart in home games with Tampa Bay for his career: 

Viewing the chart, he lost home runs to the opposite field within his line drives and fly balls produced going to right field along with centerfield. This made him pull the ball to generate home runs in home games. For perspective, this same data with Milwaukee's home park as the backdrop appears as such:

It's a rough estimate, but around 12 outs in Tampa Bay would be home runs in Milwaukee. Taking all of his line drives and fly balls during Adames time with the Rays then placing them in American Family Field (formerly Miller Park) would look as such:

This may be cherry picking but it's part of the equation when discerning how to evaluate Adames going forward. If he moves his results with Milwaukee towards his career road rates with Tampa Bay, he's a different player for fantasy purposes. In fact, I'm guessing he will be on many sleeper lists in 2022 after a strong campaign with the Brewers. This means you will remain ahead of the curve if the breakout continues this year. 

Last, but not least, here's his spray chart since joining Milwaukee on May 22nd:

What savvy fantasy players will monitor regarding Adames the rest of the way, his walk and strikeout percentages hold the key to an actual breakout. Carrying over his road splits from the Rays over the course of a full rest of the season with Milwaukee would be huge to his development as a hitter. 

Adames turns 26 this September so he's entering the precipice of his power peak, in a plus-hitting ballpark. Here's his rest-of-the-season projections from different systems courtesy of Fangraphs:

If Adames attains the power from THE BAT X with his current numbers, this translates into a potential 24 home run season with six stolen bases and 80 RBI. It's not jumping off the page results but it should get your attention. Putting these numbers with just his time in Milwaukee translates into 19 home runs with 64 RBI and five steals in 108 games. Pacing this out to 150 contests, suddenly he's a 26 home run, 89 RBI and 7 stolen base middle infielder with upside for 2022. Breakouts do not come in the same iterations, but this one may be titled, "Straight out of Tampa” if he continues these results. 

Best part, right now, not many seem interested in finding out if he's within a breakout well under the radar.

Statistical Credits: 

Baseball-Reference.com

BaseballSavant.com

Fangraphs.com

THE BAT and THE BAT X courtesy of Derek Carty

Steamerprojections.com

ZiPS courtesy of Dan Szymborski