SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Willy Adames’ eyes get bigger. His focus gets sharper. His drive gets stronger. His bat gets mightier.
When stepping to the plate with runners in scoring position, the Giants’ new shortstop tends to morph into a different kind of hitter. A better, more potent, dare we say, clutch hitter.
Baseball’s analytics revolution remains in full force, and there are folks in the analytics community who dismiss “clutch” as a legitimate trait. When a hitter drives in runs in big moments, the data wonks consider it more as a random outcome. Likewise, they say, the RBI isn’t necessarily a reliable indicator of player performance because it’s a stat heavily dependent on teammates being on base.
Well, now it can be told: The 2025 Giants see it differently.
Under Buster Posey, the president of baseball operations who replaced heavily analytics-driven Farhan Zaidi, there’s a different vibe in training camp. Players and coaches seem freer to value and apply old-school principles and practices to accompany new-school thinking and methods — and the presence of Adames is representative of the new direction.
He drove in 112 runs last season in Milwaukee, more than any big-leaguer other than sluggers Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Jose Ramirez, and that matters to the Giants’ brass. It matters to Adames, too.
“Yeah, I’m old school on that stuff,” Adames said. “People value a lot of different things nowadays. They don’t always value RBIs or batting average. I feel something’s lost. I think for me, that’s just baseball.”
The way Adames produces, handles his at-bats, and understands the value of an RBI are among the many reasons Posey signed the free agent in December for $182 million over seven years. It’s not lost on Posey that the last Giant to drive in 100 runs was, well, Posey, back in 2012, his MVP year.
The Giants have lacked a big-time run producer in recent years, which helps explain their mediocrity. While Adames batted .251 in 2024, he hit 42 points higher with runners in scoring position. Likewise, in 2022, his average with runners in scoring position was 63 points higher than his overall average. In 2023, it was 29 points higher. He averaged 97 RBIs the past three seasons, which doesn’t seem all that random.
“To drive in 100 runs and not hit .300, that to me shows a knack for being able to push the run across the plate in multiple ways,” Posey said, “whether it’s with a runner on third and less that two outs and you’re giving yourself up (with a sacrifice fly or groundout) or maybe finding a hole on the right side and getting that runner in from second with two outs or even hitting a bunch of homers as he did last year (32). That’s the name of the game.”
Like RBIs, batting average is de-emphasized in an analytic age that values on-base percentage far more. Posey said he still puts value on hitting .300 and happens to be the Giants’ last .300 hitter. Jung Hoo Lee probably is the Giants’ best .300 candidate after hitting .300 in each of his seven seasons in Korea, albeit against inferior competition, and having his first season with the Giants cut short with a shoulder injury in May.
Lee said he is “aiming” to hit .300 while mostly focusing on his on-base skills, and Adames is eyeing another 100-RBI season, though it figures to be tougher in hitter-unfriendly Oracle Park.
“If you’re hitting .300, your on-base percentage is most likely going to be pretty good,” Posey said. “If you’re driving in runs, most likely you’re going to be getting hits, you’re going to be driving the ball in the gap. So, most definitely, a .300 hitter puts traffic on the bases and puts pressure on the defense. I’ll take as many as I can get.”
By no means is Posey strictly old school. At his introductory news conference, he said, “Analytics are here to stay. It would be a mistake not to use them.” As a former decorated catcher, he relied on as much data as possible to devise game plans with his pitchers, and his current analytics department churns out plenty of numbers and provides plenty of technology to benefit players.
At the same time, a philosophical change seems evident, which was underscored in an interview with batting coach Pat Burrell, who joined the Giants last season as a part of manager Bob Melvin’s first staff. Melvin succeeded Gabe Kapler, whose analytic views were in line with Zaidi’s.
“We’re going to try to do what we need to do to win,” Burrell said. “So does that include some of these things that haven’t been as emphasized throughout the industry? Yeah, it does. We’re OK with that. The guy running the show here [Posey] was a part of championship teams in ’10, ’12 and ’14 that were about pitching and defense. We didn’t have any 30-homer guys, but we did have timely hitting, guys who were committed to being really tough outs.”
Indeed, none of those teams put up big OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) numbers. The 2010 champs ranked 17th in OPS among the 30 teams while the 2012 and 2014 teams were 14th. On that note, the Giants ranked a mere 17th in homers in 2014 and dead last in 2012.
At Oracle Park, the modern-day lean toward launch angles and exit velocities can sometimes be counterproductive considering all the long fly balls that die in outfielders’ gloves, especially in right-center. In fact, when Burrell was asked if the Giants are emphasizing launch angles and exit velocities, he said, “I like to use the phrase, ‘It’s not how hard you hit it, it’s how often.’ ”
It’s a clear change from the previous regime. To that point, management and the staff have spoken about pushing basic fundamentals, making more contact, and, when applicable, advancing runners without the benefit of hits.
“If [Logan] Webb throws eight innings and gives up two runs, that’s where the little things come in,” Burrell said. “He’s going toe-to-toe with the other pitcher, and if we do the little things right, take advantage of three or four situations by moving runners over and executing, we win that game 3-2. You can try to hit a three-run homer or a ground ball the other way. One’s a lot easier than the other. The ground ball isn’t as glamorous, but it’s about getting it done.”
Another change this spring is the large number of former Giants that Posey invited to camp to assist players, something that hadn’t been seen so much under Zaidi. Every week, two or three alumni appear for several days as guest instructors. Former second baseman Marco Scutaro, the MVP of the 2012 NLCS, is in town this week. For what the Giants want to accomplish, he’s a perfect role model, considering his elite bat-to-ball skills and contact rate and how he grasped the art of moving runners over.
Burrell encouraged outfielder Heliot Ramos to chat with Scutaro, and not long after, the two were sitting for an hour talking baseball and life. “You talk to Marco, he says, ‘I played a different game,’” Burrell said. “It’s a game we want to embrace.”
For Adames, that means changing nothing. The Giants like him exactly as is. Aside from his 30-homer, 100-RBI season (the Giants haven’t had anyone do that since Barry Bonds in 2004), Adames stole 21 bases (the Giants’ last 20-30-100 man was Bonds in 1998).
The big question is whether Adames can come close to producing that well playing half his games at Oracle Park. When the subject surfaced with the 29-year-old, he laughed.
“Yeah, everybody asks me the same question,” he said. “You hear that a lot, it’s not a hitters’ park. Yeah, people don’t hit a lot of homers, but in 2021, they won 107 games by scoring a lot of runs and hitting the most homers in the league. It’s big, but I’ll get more doubles. I don’t really care about it. I’m just going to enjoy it, embrace it, and take advantage of the big park and keep doing my thing.”
Which is perfectly fine with his manager, who loves Adames’ RBI capabilities. Last year, Adames tied Ken Griffey Jr.’s MLB record for most three-run homers in a season (13), but finds many other ways to score runners.
“You could say it’s all about opportunities, but there are guys that are just RBI guys,” said Melvin, noting a recent exhibition against the Brewers in which Adames flipped the ball up the middle with two outs to score two runs. “He didn’t have to hit the ball 115 mph to drive in the runners. With guys on base, he steps up in a big way and smells those RBIs.”
Posey, Melvin, and Burrell all want the Giants to get better in high-leverage situations. The 2024 team ranked 24th in hitting with runners in scoring position and had the 11th-most strikeouts. The presence of Adames should help with the run production even if some of it comes via old-school tendencies.
“Let’s play winning baseball. Let’s really get back to some real basics here,” Burrell said. “I think some of those things got lost in the shuffle the past 10 years. When you get into the playoffs, it’s the little things that win. That’s why we want to do them now.”