Buster Posey gives candid assessment of Willy…
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 profession by just about any measure.
One flooring above the MGM Sportsbook at the ARIA Resort and Casino as the MLB common managers conferences wrapped up Wednesday, Buster Posey said he wasn’t a betting man.
But if he had been, the Giants’ top baseball official said, “I’d bet that Willy has a pretty good bounce-back year next year.”
San Francisco Giants shortstop Willy Adames smiles after scoring in the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. Boston Globe via Getty Images
That’s a daring declare about a participant on the fallacious aspect of 30 with a unhealthy back that bothered him all season and finally led to shutting him down in August after the fewest video games of his profession.
Adames set a quantity of profession lows last season: on-base proportion (.289), OPS (.713) and stroll charge (7.3%), to title a few. The numbers closest to profession highs didn’t inform a more optimistic story: strikeout charge (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 emotions when he sat down with Posey, supervisor Tony Vitello and the remaining of the Giants’ top brass at the end of the season. His brokers at CAA reiterated that when they sat down with San Francisco officers this week inside the sprawling property on the Strip.
With the money still owed to Adames — $155 million over the next 5 years — plus the trajectory of his health and play, the 2 sides would appear to be caught with each other.
However, The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon reported this week that the Blue Jays had bandied about the concept of making an attempt to commerce for Adames. The Giants had been open for business on all of their big-money place gamers at the commerce deadline, and Posey said their stance is the same now.
San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey stands on the sector before a recreation against the Miami Marlins on Saturday, April 25, 2026. IMAGN IMAGES via GWN Connect
“We’ve gotta listen on pretty much anybody,” he said this week.
If Adames is back in a Giants uniform in 2027, there may have to be a tough dialog.
Before this past yr, Adames had missed just three video games the earlier two seasons and hadn’t performed fewer than 139 in a season since debuting halfway through his rookie yr.
Vitello refused to take him out of the lineup, even as self-discipline for forgetting the quantity of outs on the bases while making chit-chat with Mookie Betts on second base.
Adames didn’t get his first time off until the Giants’ twenty eighth recreation of the season and missed just two of their first 83 video games. He then refused to go on the injured checklist when his back flared up in late June, instead taking up a roster spot despite being bodily 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 ahead, regardless of Adames’ needs.
Willy Adames of the San Francisco Giants watches a hit against the Boston Red Sox during a recreation at Fenway Park in Boston on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. Getty Images
“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 performed long enough to perceive the getting older curve isn’t pleasant to ballplayers after their thirtieth birthday. He had to change the best way he skilled, and he’s recommending that Adames do the same in conjunction with the Giants’ training workers.
“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 exercises would help Adames’ vary at shortstop, one issue in his league-worst array of superior 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 target of this offseason is to flip around a group coming off one of the worst seasons in its historical past. Adames’ objectives aren’t all that different.
And for Posey to obtain his purpose, he wants his shortstop to do the same.
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