Buster Posey gives frank assessment of Willy Adames’ future as Giants shortstop

LAS VEGAS — Something had to give after the season Willy Adames had in 2026.

Only two years into the richest contract ever awarded by the Giants, the 31-year-old shortstop slogged through the worst season of his career by just about any measure.

One floor above the MGM Sportsbook at the ARIA Resort and Casino as the MLB general managers meetings wrapped up Wednesday, Buster Posey said he wasn’t a betting man.

But if he were, the Giants’ top baseball official said, “I’d bet that Willy has a pretty good bounce-back year next year.”

That’s a bold claim about a player on the wrong side of 30 with a bad back that bothered him all season and eventually led to shutting him down in August after the fewest games of his career.

Adames set a number of career lows last season: on-base percentage (.289), OPS (.713) and walk rate (7.3%), to name a few. The numbers closest to career highs didn’t tell a more optimistic story: strikeout rate (27.5%), errors (18).

So why, then, the sense of optimism from Posey?

“I just think he’s motivated,” Posey said. “I think he was pretty frustrated with how the year went, not only for the team but for himself personally. I think he’s motivated.”

Adames relayed those feelings when he sat down with Posey, manager Tony Vitello and the rest of the Giants’ top brass at the end of the season. His agents at CAA reiterated that when they sat down with San Francisco officials this week inside the sprawling property on the Strip.

With the money still owed to Adames — $155 million over the next five years — plus the trajectory of his health and play, the two sides would seem to be stuck with each other.

However, The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon reported this week that the Blue Jays had bandied about the idea of trying to trade for Adames. The Giants were open for business on all of their big-money position players at the trade deadline, and Posey said their stance is the same now.

“We’ve gotta listen on pretty much anybody,” he said this week.

If Adames is back in a Giants uniform in 2027, there will have to be a difficult conversation.

Before this past year, Adames had missed just three games the previous two seasons and hadn’t played fewer than 139 in a season since debuting midway through his rookie year.

Vitello refused to take him out of the lineup, even as discipline for forgetting the number of outs on the bases while making chit-chat with Mookie Betts on second base.

Adames didn’t get his first day off until the Giants’ 28th game of the season and missed just two of their first 83 games. He then refused to go on the injured list when his back flared up in late June, instead taking up a roster spot despite being physically unable to play.

That’s not a sustainable model as he enters his mid-30s. Posey said the Giants will pencil in more scheduled days off going forward, regardless of Adames’ wishes.

“He won’t like it,” Posey said. “But I think we have to do it just to put him in the best spot to be successful. He can be mad at me. If he wants to get mad at me, it’s coming from a good place because we want him to be as productive as possible.”

Posey retired after his age-34 season, but he played long enough to understand the aging curve isn’t friendly to ballplayers after their 30th birthday. He had to change the way he trained, and he’s recommending that Adames do the same in conjunction with the Giants’ training staff.

“You can’t just go in and throw around the heaviest weight all the time and expect to keep your mobility the same,” Posey said. “I think there’s an emphasis for him … to really structure his workouts to increase his athletic movements. Maybe think of it — I don’t know this, but the way I’m thinking — is like less bulky muscle mass.”

Posey was hopeful that the modified workouts would help Adames’ range at shortstop, one factor in his league-worst array of advanced defensive metrics. Defensive Runs Saved, Fielding Run Value and Outs Above Average all rated him as one of the league’s three worst shortstops.

For Posey, the objective of this offseason is to turn around a team coming off one of the worst seasons in its history. Adames’ goals aren’t all that different. 

And for Posey to achieve his aim, he needs his shortstop to do the same.