How San Francisco Giants Acquiring Shortstop Willy Adames Could Go South

The San Francisco Giants are early winners for their signing of Willy Adames, but recent history might cause some concern around his massive contract.

Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Willy Adames (27) reacts to Milwaukee Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick’s (10) homer (1) on a fly ball to right field during the seventh inning of Game 3 of National League wild-card series against the New York Mets on Thursday October 3, 2024 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis. / Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants made a huge move in agreeing to a deal with shortstop Willy Adames on a massive contract on Saturday night.

Though the signing is an exciting move for the new management team, these sorts of deals always come with some form of risk.

Before the deal was made, CBS Sports' R.J. Anderson looked to the top of the free agency class for a way to play 'devil's advocate' for the best payers. Adames was included in that group.

For the power-hitting shortstop, his sky-high strikeout rate is what could be cause for concern.

The former Milwaukee Brewer posted a .251/.331/.462 slash line last season with a career-high 32 home runs and 112 RBI. He also bumped up his base running with 21 stolen bases, his previous high was just eight.

All of that is very promising. What isn't promising, is a career-high 173 strikeouts to go along with it. He had one of the highest rates in the league and it was mostly due to an even higher swing-and-miss rate.

When the 29-year-old made contact, the results were great. The problem was just making contact. Of course, it didn't cause many issues last season.

As Anderson pointed out, the company that Adames shares with his age, position and strikeout numbers does raise some eyebrows.

The only five other players that he can be compared to are Danny Espinosa, Trevor Story, Jose Hernandez, Paul DeJong and Javier Baez.

Espinosa was out of the league by the time he was 31 because of a such sharp decline.

Story is still in the league and playing ok when he is healthy. He had a down year in 2023 and is dealing with injury issues, but seems to be a different case than just his strikeouts coming back to bite him. The 32-year-old definitely isn't the same player he used to be, though.

Hernandez would be the best case scenario of this group. He struggled with consistency later in his career but still made his first All-Star game and had a .256/.320/.415 after turning 29.

DeJong had a down year in 2023, but had been struggling for a while. He is an outlier in this group. His 2024 was his best season in years, though.

Baez is infamous at this point for having one of the worst contracts in baseball.

He signed his new deal with the Detroit Tigers after his age 28 season and has posted a .221/.262/.347 slash line in the three years since.

Adames is his own player, so he can definitely rise above his peers with San Francisco. The bad history of high-strikeout rate shortstops does cause a little bit of worry, though.