Giants’ record-setting Willy Adames deal shows Buster Posey means business

Buster Posey held the San Francisco Giants’ record for the largest contract in franchise history. In Posey’s first major move as the club’s president of baseball operations, he did not hesitate to smash it.

The Giants agreed to terms with free-agent shortstop Willy Adames on a seven-year, $182 million contract on Saturday, reshaping the left side of their infield for the remainder of the decade and signaling their resolve to remain aggressive as they seek to reestablish their relevance in the National League West. The agreement with Adames is pending a physical — more than a trifling detail given the medical issues that scuttled Carlos Correa’s $350 million contract following the 2022 season — and its guaranteed money would soar past Posey’s own nine-year, $167 million contract that he signed after winning the NL MVP Award in 2012.

With Adames and third baseman Matt Chapman, who signed a six-year, $150 million extension in September, the Giants have committed a third of a billion dollars to establish a solid offensive and defensive presence on the left side of their infield. Viewed together, those investments are not so different from the megadeals that the Texas Rangers gave to shortstop Corey Seager and second baseman Marcus Semien after the 2021 season — a $500 million bet that paid off when the Rangers won the first World Series title in franchise history two years later.

Adames, 29, earned 4.8 fWAR last season when he finished fourth in the majors with 112 RBIs, set career highs in home runs (32) and stolen bases (21), and led the Milwaukee Brewers to the NL Central title. Likely just as significant to Posey and the Giants, Adames was a respected leader in Milwaukee, praised for his durability and his ability to produce in the clutch. He was among the league’s best defenders at shortstop in 2023, and although several of his advanced metrics declined this past season, there’s little doubt that he represents an upgrade with the glove over the Giants’ internal options at the position.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the Giants’ stunning agreement, which came on the eve of baseball’s Winter Meetings in Dallas, is how it reflects on Posey, who had been something of a cipher in his brief tenure as a first-time baseball executive, filling out front-office positions and adding advisory voices but otherwise providing few specifics on how aggressive he would be at improving a team that finished 80-82 in 2024 while missing the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.

But Posey had been clear on one point: He identified acquiring a shortstop as the club’s top priority. And the Giants just agreed to sign the top shortstop on the free-agent market.

Posey had a talent for cutting through the noise during his career behind the plate, tackling problems head-on, carving a direct path and avoiding the trap of overthinking. If his first major move as the Giants’ chief baseball architect is any indication, he will lean on those same attributes and impulses while seeking to close the sizable gap between his team and the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Identify problem. Fix problem.

Posey wasn’t sufficiently deterred by the fact that signing Adames, who had been extended a qualifying offer by the Brewers, will force the Giants to sacrifice their second- and fifth-round picks along with $1 million in international bonus money from their 2026 pool. Those are no small considerations for a franchise that also punted its second- and third-round picks in this past draft after signing Chapman and left-hander Blake Snell the previous offseason. The Giants wouldn’t have lost draft picks if they had pivoted from Adames to shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, a favorite of Giants manager Bob Melvin from their time together in San Diego but who will be continuing to rehab from offseason shoulder surgery on Opening Day.

But Adames was clearly the best shortstop on the market. And Posey kept it as simple as that.

“Ultimately, it’s a boring answer, but you just want complete baseball players,” Posey said at the GM Meetings in November. “You want guys who can do some of everything.”

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Interestingly, Posey’s first major free-agent signing is a fellow CAA client. The Giants recently announced the hiring of Jeff Berry, Posey’s former agent and the former head of CAA’s baseball division, as a special advisor.

ESPN was the first to report the agreement. The Giants aren’t expected to announce it until late Sunday or Monday.

The addition of Adames would push Tyler Fitzgerald into a competition at second base with Casey Schmitt, Brett Wisely and potentially Marco Luciano if the organization’s former top prospect isn’t traded or moved to the outfield.

The biggest question becomes how aggressive the Giants will be to address their second major need: a pitching presence for a rotation that threw the fewest innings in the National League despite the fact that their opening-day ace, Logan Webb, threw the most on an individual basis. Several reports have linked the Giants to former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, a Bakersfield-area native who competed at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga and would give the Giants one of the best 1-2 punches in the league.

Before last season with the Baltimore Orioles, Burnes had spent his entire major-league career with the Brewers so the addition of Adames might be a selling point in any Giants’ attempt at a pursuit. Both players are very well known to Zack Minasian, the Giants’ newly elevated GM, who had been the scouting director in Milwaukee during his 14 seasons with the organization. Minasian had been one of the strongest voices to champion Burnes when the right-hander showed promise in the minor leagues, advising then-Brewers GM Doug Melvin to make the former fourth-round pick practically untouchable in trade discussions.

On a cash basis, the Giants spent $206 million on player salaries last season, exceeded the luxury tax threshold ($237 million) for the first time since 2018 and sustained operating losses that caused some discomfort among members of the ownership group. Their placeholder budget numbers for 2025 had called for a reduction in player payroll, which might still be achieved even if the club can win the bidding for Burnes — a market that is expected to exceed $200 million — as well as Adames.

Adding Adames’ $26 million average annual value would put the Giants’ estimated cash-basis payroll at roughly $170 million. If the Giants seek to trim in other areas, they could trade one or more of their arbitration-eligible players (LaMonte Wade Jr. and Camilo Doval among them). Or they could sign one of several second-tier starting pitchers who won’t come cheap — witness Luis Severino’s three-year, $67 million contract with the A’s — but would require a fraction of what it would take to land Burnes, who notably left CAA for the Boras Corporation in 2023 and whose potential signing also would cost the Giants their third- and sixth-round draft picks.

Or Posey could do what he demonstrated so often over his playing career: cut through the noise, go after the best player, and convince ownership to spend.

“I know we’ll be very diligent in our decision-making,” Posey said last month. “But something I’ve tried to inject with the group is for us not to be hamstrung from that potential fear of failure. It’s knowing that, ‘Hey, sometimes we’re going to have to risk media members saying this was a bad decision or a bad move.’ But if we feel convicted in it, then you have to be OK with it.”

(Top photo of Adames: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)