PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Right-handed pitcher Cooper Adams signed as an undrafted free agent with the Red Sox last Feb. 4.
A little over a month later, the top Red Sox prospects played the top Braves prospects at JetBlue Park in the first annual Spring Breakout game.
“I’m gonna be honest: Last year when they had the Spring Breakout game at home, I was like, ‘Man, that’d be really cool to be a part of. I’m not sure if I’ll be at that (next year) but I’m gonna work my hardest to see if I can make it happen,‘” Adams said Thursday here at Charlotte Sports Park.
He did make it happen. The 24-year-old is one of 27 Red Sox prospects participating in the 2025 Spring Breakout game against the Rays here in Port Charlotte.
“ It’s amazing. Absolutely amazing,” Adams said.
Adams has come a long way since being a fifth-year senior at Mount St. Mary’s University in 2023. At that point, his fastball was in the high-80s and low-90s.
He increased his velocity significantly while working out at Tread Athletics in North Carolina after going undrafted in 2023.
He was up to 97.7 mph with his heater during the 2024 season, which he spent at High-A Greenville. His average fastball velo was 94-95 mph.
“I had an OK college career,” Adams said. “But I just think for me I didn’t throw hard enough and didn’t show the secondaries being there all the way (to get drafted). And I think me going to Tread and getting the velo up and getting some of the secondaries down allowed me to come back and be in this position.”
He worked to get stronger and made mechanical changes.
“I was lucky with a lot of the mechanical changes we made that it ended up causing the velo to surge up,” he said.
The Red Sox and other teams watched Adams at a pro day hosted by Tread Athletics.
“I was able to throw as hard as I could on that day and ended up being seen by the Red Sox. So it was pretty cool,” Adams said.
Adams also throws a changeup, cutter and “kind of like a death ball slider pitch.”
“Right now my goal is to get the death ball to be that (best secondary) pitch but it’s still fairly new,” he said. “So I’d probably say the cutter right now is my best secondary.”
He looks at his first year of pro ball as “a big changing period.” He said he was a completely different pitcher by the end of the 2024 season.
“My cutter’s probably my best pitch and at the beginning of the season last year, I didn’t even have that,” Adams said. “By the end of the year, it was throwing a different changeup.”
He changed his grip on the changeup and added the death ball slider/curveball to his repertoire.
“So it was just a complete 180 from where I started,” he said.
He finished 2024 with a 5.08 ERA in 26 outings (six starts) and 79 ⅔ innings but it was more about developing and experimenting than the numbers.
“It was a big development year. And I credit all the guys with the Red Sox,” he said.
He gave a shout out to both development coach Alex Reynolds and Greenville pitching coach Bob Kipper.
“That led me to go to the offseason and go, ‘OK, I’m gonna work on getting my pitches more consistent, getting the shapes of my pitches consistent,‘” Adams said. “And then being able to throw them in locations and throw strikes.”
