SF Giants sign Willy Adames to historic contract in Buster Posey power move

The SF Giants have signed shortstop Willy Adames to a massive seven-year $182 million contract per Jeff Passan of ESPN. The deal gives the Giants the shortstop they sought going into the offseason and shows Buster Posey means business.

The contract is the largest in franchise history for San Francisco, exceeding the $167 million deal that Posey received when he was a player.

Posey made it clear that the Giants wanted to land a shortstop at the beginning of the offseason. The two best free agent shortstops on the market were considered to be Adames and Ha-Seong Kim. There was a lot of speculation that the Giants would go after Kim given his ties to manager Bob Melvin and center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, yet the Giants opted for Adames.

The Dominican-born 29-year-old has hit 24 home runs or more in every season since 2021, blasting 32 last season. He will be a key middle-of-the-order threat for a Giants team that struggled to score runs at times last season.

SF Giants land star shortstop Willy Adames showing Buster Posey means business

His defense was typically considered stellar but he had a big of a dropoff last season. That may have just been one strange outlier season rather than a sign that his defense is deteriorating.

Adding Adames to the left side of the infield alongside Matt Chapman makes that a side any opposing team will be afraid to hit a ground ball to. The fact that those two players could combine for 50-plus homers next season will make Giants fans salivate.

This move shows that Posey is not messing around in his new role as president of baseball operations. There was some grumbling amongst some segments of the fanbase after a quiet early offseason that the Posey hire may have been more of a PR move than anything else, with not much meaningful difference from the previous Farhan Zaidi regime.

This signing will quiet those rumblings for now. It shows that the Giants are willing to spend big money to land free agents, even if it will cost them draft compensation and international bonus pool money which it will because Adames rejected a qualifying offer from the Brewers.

Ultimately, the Giants landing him shows that Posey and the Giants are willing to compete with the Los Angeles Dodgers who have already been active in free agency and were heavily linked to Adames. It will be interesting to see if this is the first shoe to drop and more moves, like signing pitcher Corbin Burnes, are on the horizon for the Giants.