The Reds drafted Adam Matthews int he 29th round of the 2012 draft and sent him to Arizona where he performed very well for the AZL Reds. This season they sent him to Billings to begin his 2013 season.
June couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start for Matthews as he went 0-4 in each of his first four games before going 1-4 in the final game of the month to finish up the short stint that was June with a 1-20 start while walking twice, driving in a run and scoring a run.
Despite the rough start the Reds sent the outfielder to Dayton after injuries opened up a spot. On the 3rd of July in the second game of a double header he would make his first appearance and would announce his presence with authority as he hit a grand slam in his first at bat for the Dragons. He would hit in the next two games before going into a prolonged slump that would see him go 1-24 over the next 7 games. The corner outfielder would finish out July with a line of .182/.260/.273 with 5 walks and 15 strikeouts in 51 plate appearances. The walk rate was good but his strikeout rate was a bit high.
When August began Matthews was sent back to Billings to play for the Mustangs. He began the month well with a 6-game hitting streak, going 9-26 (.346) with a double and 3 RBI. He went into a slump though following the hitting streak, going 2-20 over the next 6 games, though he did walk 5 times in that stretch. The next four game stretch saw Matthews go on a tear as he went 9-19 with 3 doubles, a triple, 2 home runs, 13 RBI, 2 walks and 6 runs. Over the final two weeks of the season he was up and down to finish the August/September stretch with a .281/.366/.465 line to go with 15 extra-base hits, 21 RBI, 16 walks and 33 strikeouts in 131 plate appearances. In this stretch he showed a strong walk rate and good power. The strikeout rate was down, but still a bit high at 25%.
Season Stats
| Team | PA | R | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Dayton | 51 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 15 | .182 | .260 | .273 | .533 |
| Billings | 152 | 20 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 40 | .241 | .329 | .398 | .727 |
| Total | 203 | 28 | 12 | 2 | 3 | 29 | 3 | 1 | 22 | 55 | .226 | .312 | .367 | .679 |
Overall Thoughts
I promise that I did not plan this out and that I go to random.org every day to get a number between 1-79 to correspond to my player list to choose who to write a season review on, but today the timing was outstanding on the player that came up. Tuesday night the Reds released Matthews, making this article very timely. Best of luck to him moving forward, hopefully in baseball since he still wants to play, but in whatever he does wind up doing. Matthews was inconsistent for most of the season, going through several slumps where he was just a hit or two for 20+ at bats and a few stretches where he was just absolutely on fire for a 4-6 game stretch. His last six weeks of the season were pretty strong and well in line with what he did in 2012, but with his beginning the season in June that meant the first half of his season wasn’t that good. His walk rate was pretty good on the year, just over 11%, but his strikeout rate was high as it came in just over 27%.
For more player season review, you can see the entire list here.