A Virginia native, Adam Hackenberg was selected by the Royals in the 39th round in 2018 but opted to honor his verbal commitment to Clemson University. After going through some freshman struggles, he picked up his game during his sophomore and junior campaigns. The 2021 season saw Hackenberg hit .258/.336/.392 in 120 at-bats for the Tigers with seven doubles, three homers, 17 RBIs, 13 walks (9.29%) and 27 strikeouts (19.29%).
It’s interesting to note his family’s athletic credentials:
His brother, Christian, was a Penn State quarterback who was a second round pick by the Jets.
His father played football at Virginia; his mother played volleyball at Lehigh.
His brother played soccer at Penn State and was taken in the first round of the 2020 draft.
His uncle played football at Army.
With a pedigree like that, it’s no surprise that Hackenberg would move seamlessly into the professional baseball ranks. Combined with the AZL White Sox and Kannapolis, he slashed .320/.382/.440 in 100 at-bats with seven doubles, one triple, one homer, eight walks (7.3%) and 16 strikeouts (14.6%). He also had a terrific debut as a defender, throwing out nearly 36% of attempted base stealers in 2021.
In fact, defense may end up being Hackenberg’s calling card, as he did not hit well in 2022 (to be fair, his promotion to Winston-Salem to start the season was on the aggressive side, and becoming part of Project Birmingham to end the summer most certainly was so. Still, in spite of just a .649 OPS, Hackenberg’s arm showed: Fighting the challenging rules changes that drastically favored baserunners in the minors, Hackenberg still nabbed almost a third of thieves.
In 2023, Hackenberg flipped the script, raising his batting average some 50 points and maintaining a solid on-base — but finding higher-minors baserunners a much bigger peak to climb (his CS% plummeted to a non-functional 23%).
