SF Giants fans are frustrated with Willy Adames but they are stuck with him

The SF Giants as a whole have come under fire this season, but one player who has really irked the angriest fans is shortstop Willy Adames. His poor performance coupled with the fact that his fun-loving personality seems out of step with the team’s current reality, but despite that the Giants seem to be stuck with him for now.

When a team is winning, Adames is much easier to be on board with. Remember back to the first half of last season when Adames was hitting really poorly but the Giants were winning games. The smiles, laughing, and Powerade baths were seen as true leadership from a veteran who was struggling badly but not bringing his teammates down with him.

When the team’s record is 22-34, he’s made egregious mental mistakes, and leads MLB with 10 errors then his personality becomes more of an albatross rather than a positive.

Many fans celebrated the fact that the team signed him to a seven-year, $182 million deal because it showed that president of baseball operations Buster Posey meant business and was going to go after big free agents, but looking back maybe fans should have been a bit more wary of the Giants signing a guy to a franchise record contract who had never made an All-Star Game and had a career slash line of .248/.322/.444.

Giants have promising young shortstops but they are far away from MLB debut

Now the Giants are in a bit of a weird spot because their farm system is just brimming with talent at shortstop. Luis Hernandez and Josuar Gonzalez have been amazing in the ACL. Jhonny Level seemingly hits a home run every day in Single-A ball for the San Jose Giants. Even Gavin Kilen has been playing well with the Eugene Emeralds in High-A.

The only problem is that obviously none of these guys are ready to be called up to the big leagues. In the case of Level, Hernandez, and Gonzalez it seems somewhat unlikely any of them will be called up this decade. Kilen could be up in a year or two but he’d have to really perform at a high level and move up through the minors quickly.

So the Giants are seemingly stuck with Adames for the foreseeable future. What happens if his first half struggles this year aren’t wiped away by a strong second half like in 2025? Then the Giants may need to have some tough conversations about him.

Could they try to trade him and move Casey Schmitt to shortstop? That would allow them to hold onto Luis Arraez at second base if they wanted. 

Trading him would almost certainly involve eating some money because there probably isn’t a team out there that would be willing to take on all of Adames’ deal with the way he’s looked this season.

It’s easy to say blow the team up and much harder to actually do it. The Giants will surely wait until the trade deadline to assess things and see if maybe, somehow, the Giants can get closer to .500 and convince themselves they have a long shot at the playoffs. 

But if things don’t change in a major way then some big changes could be made. A lot of fans will want to see Adames gone if he doesn’t improve, but that will be hard to do so the Giants may just be stuck with him for the time being.

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