Washington Nationals: Riley Adams, the afterthought, rakes former team

There were a lot of valuable assets the Washington Nationals were tying to move at the trading deadline. Of course Max Scherzer and Trea Turner were going to garner a solid return. Yan Gomes and Kyle Schwarber were both in walk years, though they would fetch a piece or two as well. What about Brad Hand? What would he get on the market?

Well for starters, Hand had given up a run in four of his previous six outings prior to the trade deadline. During that time he blew three saves and tallied three losses. What trade value he had leading up to that time, dropped. Drastically.

Hand was the first National traded, as he was sent to the Toronto Blue Jays for Riley Adams. Adams, the seventeenth ranked prospect in the Jays system, is a catcher. With Gomes on the trading block and Alex Avila walking after the year, the Nats needed to get younger at the position.

Then Kiebert Ruiz was acquired. The top prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system, soon became the catcher of the future, pushing Adams to the back burner, in my eyes at least.

Nationals prospect Riley Adams is fitting in nicely while putting on a great performance against his former team.

While Ruiz figures to be called up before the end of the season, a couple injuries to Avila and recently released Rene Rivera, has led to Adams getting first dibs at big league playing time post deadline. He has not disappointed.

Ahhhh, legit. Can we make this assumption after just twenty three at-bats with the team (and 51 total in the Majors)? One thing is for sure. Riley Adams likes hitting against the team who traded him away, just weeks ago.

Adams singled and scored. Adams homered. Adams doubled in two runs, and scored. August has not been an enjoyable month to watch Nationals baseball, for Nationals fans. The series opener against the Blue Jays was enjoyable on many levels. The team scored some runs. The team hit some home runs. The team received a decent performance from the starting pitcher. The team finally won a game. The team got a glimpse into the future.

Ruiz may be more of a touted prospect and there may come a time when he is sharing reps with Adams. Until that time we’ll continue to enjoy Adams and it appears early on he can hold his own. At least against his former team, he can.

While the saying once went, lets wait for the Ruiz tenure to start. We are now saying, lets enjoy the Adams ABs until Ruiz gets his turn. Time will tell. Until then, we need to enjoy the time we have with Adams.