SF Giants dodged major bullet by not signing oft-rumored shortstop in offseason

SF Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey made no bones about the fact that the team wanted to sign a shortstop in the offseason. He did just that by signing Willy Adames and avoided disaster by not pursuing an oft-rumored target.

There were countless rumors connecting the Giants to shortstop Ha-Seong Kim in the offseason. Much was made of his friendship with Jung Hoo Lee and his familiarity with manager Bob Melvin dating back to their time together with the San Diego Padres.

SF Giants dodged major bullet by not signing Ha-Seong Kim

However, the one major complication was that Kim injured his shoulder last season with San Diego and it required surgery. That affected his value as a free agent as it was unclear when he would be able to return and raised questions about how effective he would be.

Kim ended up signing with the Tampa Bay Rays on a two-year deal with an opt-out after the first season. He debuted with Tampa Bay in early July but injured his back later in the month.

In total, he has played in 15 games this year and has a slash line of .204/.291/.286 with one home run and three runs batted in. He is obviously still trying to get back into the swing of things after his injuries, but the Giants must be thankful they did not sign him to be their shortstop.

While Adames struggled mightily early in his Giants career, he has completely turned things around and has been one of the best hitters on the team as of late. On the season he is slashing .232/.318/.411 with 18 home runs and 61 runs batted in. Plus, he has appeared in almost every game the Giants have played which is such a luxury to have at an important position like shortstop.

If the Giants had decided to sign Kim over Adames, their middle infield would have been a complete mess this season. Tyler Fitzgerald probably would have been the shortstop for much of the year early on, but his struggles at the plate earned him a demotion to Triple-A.

The Giants probably would have had to employ some patchwork of Fitzgerald, Casey Schmitt, Brett Wisely, and Christian Koss up the middle for much of the year which would not have been an ideal situation.

Thankfully, the Giants decided to go with Adames. His value to the team goes beyond his stats as he has been a consistently positive and cheerful presence for the team throughout the season.

Kim still has time to turn things around, but the fact he missed half the year and has struggled so far really makes it obvious that the Giants were wise to address their hole at shortstop by signing Adames.

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