Former Cav Adams signs with Yankees

David Adams is officially a former college baseball player.

On Monday, the UVa second baseman inked a professional contract with the New York Yankees.

Last week, Adams was selected by the Yankees in the third round with the 106th pick overall, and the Florida native expressed a strong interest to begin his professional career as soon as possible.

During his stellar career at Virginia, Adams started 182 of the 183 games that he played in. He ranks seventh in program history with 143 career RBI and 150 runs.

Adams struggled, however, this year against pitchers in ACC action during the regular season. In those weekend situations the right-handed swinging batter hit .210 (25-for-119) with five extra-base hits (2 2B, 3 HR) and fanned 22 times. Despite remaining a mainstay in the No. 3 spot in Virginia’s order, Adams ranked 86th among the 89 players logging the minimum amount of at-bats in league play.

The numbers were significantly down from Adams’ numbers in ACC action in 2007 when he hit .315 (35-for-111), had three triples and two homers, one of which was a walk-off blast against Georgia Tech.

Yankees director of scouting Damon Oppenheimer, who watched Adams in the Cape Cod League last summer, said the organization is hopeful of turning things around in the minors.

“He’s had a down year,“ Oppenheimer told reporters. “We saw some things in his stroke that they had made changes to at the college level that we run into quite a bit. That didn’t work for him. We looked at a lot of film of him at high school and the [Cape Cod League].

“We’re hoping to get this guy back, and if we can get him back to what we saw, we feel we got a guy that at one time was ranked very high.“