- Position
- SS
- Number
- #2
- Age
- 31
- Pieces here
- 21
On the record
Called Shots →Neither Willy Adames nor Matt Chapman is traded by the August 3, 2026 deadline.
None of Willy Adames, Matt Chapman or Rafael Devers is traded by the August 3, 2026 deadline.
Willy Adames does not appear in a major league game for the San Francisco Giants at any point in the remainder of the 2026 regular season.
From August 28 through the end of the 2026 regular season, Christian Koss starts more games at shortstop than at all other positions combined.
San Francisco starts a seventh different player at third base at some point in the 2026 regular season.
Christian Koss hits no more than one home run over the rest of the 2026 regular season, finishing with four or fewer.
Rafael Devers leads the San Francisco Giants in home runs in the 2027 regular season.
San Francisco finishes the 2027 regular season ranked in the bottom ten of the thirty major league clubs in team OPS against left-handed pitching, meaning 21st or worse.
Willy Adames finishes 2027 at 0 or better in Outs Above Average at shortstop. RIGHT if Baseball Savant's qualified 2027 leaderboard shows him at shortstop with 0 or more. WRONG if it shows him at shortstop below 0. VOID if he is not on that leaderboard at shortstop (traded, injured, moved to another position, or a shortened season leaves him unqualified).
Written about him
The Giants are building 2027 on seven players, and two of them held up
Nothing the Giants announced at their season-end news conference moves any of the seven players the club is building 2027 on: Rafael Devers, Bryce Eldridge, Logan Webb, Landen Roupp, Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Jung Hoo Lee. Measured against what next season asks of each, two of them delivered in 2026, and they are the two who split first base and designated hitter. Devers and Eldridge drew 128 walks in 1,081 plate appearances; every other Giant drew 321 in 4,980, a 6.4 percent rate against 8.9 for the majors. The other five each have to recover a specific thing from 2025: Webb's innings and strikeouts, Roupp's walk rate, Adames's defense at shortstop, Chapman's bat and Lee's walk rate. Adames went from +5 Outs Above Average to -17, and of 12 qualified shortstops since 2017 who fell to -10 or worse and stayed at the position, three got back to zero. Lee can opt out of his contract after 2027. One Called Shot filed.
Posey starts the winter with the bullpen, and the rotation lost more
At the season-end news conference on September 29, Buster Posey took the blame for the bullpen and said the club's offseason work starts there, with the rotation right behind it. The 2026 record explains why the bullpen is first in line: 16-29 in one-run games, and a relief corps whose strikeout-minus-walk rate beat only two clubs. The 2027 supply says the rotation has the bigger hole. Of 162 starts, 39 went to Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle, both traded at the deadline, and 31 went to Trevor McDonald, Blade Tidwell and Carson Whisenhunt, whose elbows put their returns at late 2027 or 2028. The lineup the club intends to keep drew 449 walks, the fewest in the majors, and owes $451 million from 2027 on to Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman. The same week, MLB Pipeline named San Francisco its Farm System of the Year. No take filed.
Remove Rafael Devers and the Giants are still 25th against left-handed pitching
Rafael Devers posted a .573 OPS against left-handed pitching and a 1.027 OPS against right-handed pitching in 2026, a gap of 454 points and the largest of any qualified left-handed hitter in the major leagues. Remove his 220 plate appearances against left-handers from San Francisco's team totals and the Giants improve from .669 to .684, which moves them from 28th to 25th of thirty and leaves them 22 points below the league median of .706. The 40-man roster holds 18 position players, nine right-handed and nine left-handed, and no switch-hitter; four of the thirty clubs are in that position. Willy Adames, the club's primary right-handed bat, hit worse against left-handed pitching than against right-handed pitching. The best right-handed answer in the system is 22-year-old Lorenzo Meola, who is at Single-A San Jose. One take filed.
A Giant Has Hit 35 Doubles And 35 Home Runs Seven Times Since 1883. Rafael Devers Just Made It Eight.
Rafael Devers has 36 doubles and 36 home runs in 147 games for San Francisco, which is the eighth time a player has reached 35 of each in a season for this franchise and the first since Jeff Kent in 2002. Devers is the seventh man to do it, because Barry Bonds did it twice. Counted across every season the league's records hold for the club, 1883 through 2026, the other seven seasons belong to Mel Ott in 1929, Willie Mays in 1962, Willie McCovey in 1970, Barry Bonds in 1993 and 1998, Rich Aurilia in 2001 and Kent. Devers is also the only player in the major leagues at 35 and 35 in 2026: four men have 35 doubles and eight have 35 home runs, and he is the only name on both lists. He reached 35 home runs on September 5 at New York and 35 and 36 doubles on September 7 against St. Louis. He was the National League's player of the week for the week dated September 6. Tony Vitello rested him on September 9, ending a consecutive-games streak at 309, which Susan Slusser reported as the third-longest active streak in the majors behind Matt Olson's 927 and Pete Alonso's 562. The next-best home run total on the roster is 21, shared by Willy Adames and Casey Schmitt, and both men are on the 60-day injured list with returns the club lists as 2027. Devers has 36 of San Francisco's 167 home runs and 36 of its 246 doubles. The club is 62-86 and eliminated with 14 games left. Two takes filed.
Losing Willy Adames Costs The Giants A Third Baseman, Not A Shortstop
Six men have started a game at third base for San Francisco in 2026. Matt Chapman made 82 of those starts and has not played since June 30; Casey Schmitt made 24 and has not played since July 27. Both had surgery in the following days and MLB's injury page gives both an expected return of 2027. Christian Koss has held the job since July 28, but he has also started nine games at shortstop since July 1, and on every one of those days somebody else played third: Schmitt once, Buddy Kennedy five times, Shay Whitcomb three. Kennedy and Whitcomb were both claimed off waivers this month, from Seattle on August 2 and Houston on August 13, and Kennedy was designated for assignment on Thursday after going 4 for 33 with four singles. Willy Adames received a PRP injection in his sprained left elbow on Thursday; Tony Vitello said three or four weeks of rest and the club's injury page says a four-week minimum, which lands on September 24 against a last scheduled game of September 27. Koss and Whitcomb have drawn six walks in 159 plate appearances between them this season, against 74 in 857 for Chapman and Adames. Three takes filed, on Adames, on Koss at shortstop and on a seventh third baseman.
San Francisco's Active Roster Does Not List A Shortstop
San Francisco placed Willy Adames (left elbow sprain on the transaction log; MLB.com reported an MRI showing a moderate strain of the non-throwing elbow, and the two wordings are recorded here as published rather than blended) and Victor Bericoto (right knee bone bruise) on the 10-day injured list on August 24 and JT Brubaker (bruised ribs) on the 15-day, all three hurt in Sunday's 5-4 loss at Boston. Bryce Eldridge went on the bereavement list and Matt Wilkinson was optioned. The Giants recalled five men from Triple-A Sacramento the same day: Nate Furman, Grant McCray, Anthony Molina, Ryan Walker and Shay Whitcomb. Adames had started 121 games at shortstop and played 1,046.1 innings there; MLB's active-roster page now lists no shortstop among the 26. Christian Koss, a third baseman with 71 innings at short this year and two innings pitched, played the position Monday while Whitcomb made his Giants debut at third. San Francisco won 5-0 behind six pitchers after losing starter Carson Whisenhunt in the third inning to left elbow pain. Whisenhunt was scheduled for an MRI on Tuesday morning and no result has been published. The Giants have used 58 players this season, tied with the Angels and the Athletics for fifth-most in the majors against a league median of 52, and seven of them made their San Francisco debut in August.
The Best Giants At Oracle Park In July 2028 May Be In The Futures Game
Major League Baseball awarded San Francisco the 2028 All-Star Game on Friday, the city's fourth and its first at Oracle Park since 2007. The Giants are 50-72 and spent the deadline turning veterans into prospects. Four of their five Baseball America Top 100 prospects are in Single-A or below, and on the reported date of the game the two that shop ranks highest will be 20 and 19 years old. The men actually under contract that summer are Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Logan Webb, and Webb's deal expires that year.
San Francisco Sold Everything It Was Allowed To Sell
The Giants moved Mahle, Arraez, Ray, Ramos and Erik Miller and got eight players back, one of whom matters. What they did not move is the story: Adames and Chapman each hold a full no-trade clause, which means the salary relief everyone was pricing was never actually on the market. Plus an honest accounting of six deadline calls filed here on Sunday, two of which were right.