Your 2025 Giants: Willy Adames Signed for 7 year, $182M

As reported, the Giants signed SS Willy Adames to a 7 year, $182M contract, which beats out Posey's contract for the largest in Giants history.

Here are some good articles on the signing:

• In Adames, Giants got top target with 'sterling, sparkling' reputation
• Posey reveals why Adames became Giants' top free agency choice
• Brewers manager gushes over ‘special' Giants addition Adames

ogc thoughts

I'm sure almost all Giants fans held their breath waiting for Adames' physical to come through.Whew!!! Great signing!  Obviously, any time you can add a 30-homer shortstop with average or better defense, it is an addition that makes the team better.

Buster Got His Man

Posey stated that his number one priority was shortstop, and he went for Adames from the get go, signing him while most of the big spending teams were preoccupied with signing Juan Soto (who the Mets landed). He identified what the Giants needed most and contacted Adames, and found that they were on the same page in terms of interest, leading to the Giants finalizing the deal even before Soto had decided.

As noted in the above article with the Brewers manager, Adames brings a lot of the intangibles that Posey said would be an emphasis going forward, though, to be fair, Zaidi also stated similar statements with the Correa signing as well, only to have to need to back out of the deal because of the failed physical.  In any case, Adames appears to be a born leader, as he speaks multiple languages and thus would be able to communicate with most of his teammates in their native tongue, he keep the team loose, giving a different handshake to every teammate, and other non-baseball things done to help the team. 

This urgency on the part of Posey is reminiscent of how Sabean used to operate, and is a different stance from Zaidi, who probably would have been involved in pursuing Soto, like he did Ohtani and Yamamoto, but then would have to contend with the other teams who lost out on Soto, and get into a bidding war. Instead, Posey approached Adames, made it clear that he was the priority, and Willy happened to be interested in what the Giants are building as well.  Of course, it helped that he got an extra year beyond what most estimates had him for (7 years) and at the AAV he was expected for ($26M).  

Adames is basically a power hitting shortstop with good to great defense up to last season. I've read an article that noted that his poor fielding could be related to a new type of field Milwaukee utilized last season, as 15 of his 20 errors were at home.  In any case, whatever his issues, he was still at 0 OAA for 2024, which is average, and now he will have Matt Chapman hoovering a ton of grounders to his right that he won't have to worry about anymore. His defense should be okay, and perhaps can be closer to prior heights of defensive excellence than to average.

Roster Consequences

This also moves Fitzgerald to second base, where he should be a plus fielder, whereas he was at best average at shortstop and likely below average.  And if his bat can duplicate some of what he did last season (unfortunately, he was like Matos, had a blazing white hot period of hitting, but was mostly below average otherwise), he will win the starting role there.  But I think it's a safe bet that he will get sturdy competition for the starting role from Casey Schmidt, who showed off better hitting last season, which would play at 2B, and who would also be a plus defender at 2B. 

Adames greatly adds to Posey's stated goal of emphasizing defense as the Giants competitive strength, while also providing a great middle of lineup hitter, which has been particularly missing at least the past two seasons, and which Soler was supposed to provide last season.  This now gives the Giants three good power hitters in Adames, Chapman, and Ramos to bat in the 3-4-5-6 spots, varying with the pitcher, along with two good OBP hitters in Lee and Wade atop the lineup.  Hopefully one of Fitzgerald and Bailey can figure out how to hit well most of the time, and that would give the lineup six good hitters, plus a seventh in Yastrzemski against RHP.  That would be roughly an average offense, which can get the team into the upper 80's wins (85-89) if their pitching can be elite (top 3) in the NL.

That leaves a question mark about who will be the DH. Having a good hitter there would really boost the expected potency of the lineup, which was what Soler was supposed to do last season, and propel it to being above average.  However, as noted in an article, the Giants (that is, Bob Melvin) did not like the inflexibility in that they could not rest a starter at DH or give bench players a start.  Maybe they could go with a quasi platoon at DH, allowing Melvin to mix in regular starters and bench players. So it will be interesting to see what Posey decides is best for the team going forward.