The Giants’ Long-Term Contracts Are Becoming A Big Problem

The Giants are in a real tough spot right now. They are 16-24 on the season, one of the worst records in baseball. An individual season being disappointing is something that happens to most teams but the current struggles are casting shadows over the long-term outlook since a lot of the disappointment is coming from the long-term core.

Aside from a stunning 107-win season in 2021, the Giants have been a .500 club or worse for a decade now. They have tried to get more aggressive recently, adding a number of large contracts to their books. Their three longest remaining commitments are to Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman. All three are performing poorly, which could limit the club’s flexibility going forward. One major underwater contract is usually bad news for a team but three is obviously a much greater concern.

Devers is easily having the worst season of his career so far. He has a .232/.276/.364 batting line and 79 wRC+, indicating he’s been 21% worse than the league average hitter. That’s miles south of his career line, which is .274/.347/.502 and translates to a 125 wRC+. His 30.1% strikeout rate is more than three ticks worse than his previous career high. His 6.1% walk rate would be his lowest in a full season. The struggles can’t really be blamed on poor luck. Devers has a .310 batting average on balls in play. That’s a bit south of his .315 career rate but barely, and still above the .289 league average.

The Giants probably have to be hoping Devers is hurt. If not, the trends are gloomy. Though he was still a productive hitter as recently as last year, there have been some worrying things under the hood for a while. His bat speed was in the 68th percentile of qualified hitters in 2023 but that dropped to 61st in 2024 and 42nd last year. He’s down to 38th so far in 2026.

At the same time, he’s been getting attacked more and taking advantage less. 45% of the pitches Devers saw in 2023 were in the strike zone. That ticked up to 47.2% in 2024, 48.6% last year and 50.6% this year. He’s also been seeing more fastballs and less offspeed stuff. In 2023, he was getting 59.8% fastballs and 16.3% offspeed. That ratio has shifted to be 64.9% fastballs and 12.6% offspeed this year. He made contact on 76.2% of pitches in the zone in 2023, but that dropped to 71.9%, 71.4% and 69.4% in subsequent seasons.

Devers’ exit velocity and hard-hit rate stayed strong for most of that stretch but have nosedived this year. He is averaging 90.3 miles per hour off the bat this year, more than three points below last year’s 93.5 mph. His 46.2% hard hit rate is well below last year’s 56.1% clip. Last year, he still damaged four-seam fastballs. Statcast gave him a run value of 13 as he hit .249 with a .512 slug. This year, he’s at a -2 run value with a .192 batting average and .462 slug.

In short, teams don’t seem too scared of Devers and he’s not making them pay for that. Perhaps there is some ailment that explains this. Devers has dealt with back, shoulder and hamstring issues in his career. A disk injury in his lower back was hampering him last year, though he didn’t go on the injured list for it.

If that’s not what’s going on here and Devers is just suddenly hitting a decline phase at age 29, that’s extremely worrisome for the Giants. He’s not a burner on the basepaths and doesn’t provide defensive value. He was never a good third baseman and doesn’t seem likely to play there again (at least not with any kind of regularity). He’s still getting accustomed to first base and hasn’t received good grades there so far. He needs to hit to be useful to the Giants.

Adames is having an even worse season at the plate. He has a .209/.242/.342 line and 64 wRC+. His 3.6% walk rate is awful and about half of his previous career low, which was 7.9% in 2022. He has always had a somewhat high strikeout rate but this year’s 29.7% clip would easily be his worst in a full season. His hard hit rate, exit velocity and barrel rate are all down relative to last year.

The issue for Adames is perhaps one of aggression. He’s actually getting pitched in the zone less while making more contact on the whole. However, he is only swinging at the first pitch 26.1% of the time, compared to a 30.9% career rate. He is also only swinging at 65.1% of pitches in the zone, compared to a 70.2% career clip.

However you chop it up, it’s not good, but Adames at least covers a premium position at shortstop. Outs Above Average thinks he’s a bit worse defensively this year but Defensive Runs Saved has him trending up. Though Adames and Devers are both struggling to hit, Adames should be less of a concern due to his ability to cover shortstop, at least for now.

Chapman’s offense isn’t quite as dire as the other two but it’s still not good. His 9% walk rate and 22.9% strikeout rate are both near league average, but he has just one home run, a .235/.313/.322 line and an 86 wRC+. His 31.5% hard-hit rate is way down from last year’s 47.6% clip. Chapman’s glovework is still getting strong reviews, however, so he hasn’t been totally useless.

The club’s results aren’t entirely due to these three, as the pitching has also been lackluster. However, in a sense, that is connected to these three big contracts. The Giants have seemingly been loath to spend on pitching lately, presumably because so much of their payroll is already tied up. In the past two offseasons, their two-year, $22MM deal with Adrian Houser has been their largest pitching investment.

Making any kind of pivot is going to be very difficult, if not impossible. Chapman and Adames both have full no-trade protection. Even putting that aside, it’s not as though they have a ton of value. Adames will make $28MM annually from 2027 to 2031, leaving $140MM still to be paid out after the current season. Given his current performance, no club will be eager to take that on. Chapman is making $25MM annually through 2030, leaving $100MM on the deal after this season. He’s still picking it at third but he just turned 33, so teams know decline is coming eventually.

Devers does not have no-trade protection in his deal, which is why the Giants were able to get him from the Red Sox. But the deal runs through 2033 and isn’t cheap. Nominally, he’s getting paid about $30MM a year for the remainder, though $7.5MM is deferred annually and to be paid out through 2043. Even if some team were willing to acquire him, the optics for the Giants would be rough. Since his stock is down, they would receive something less than what they just gave up to get Devers last year, when they sent out Kyle Harrison, James Tibbs III, Jose Bello and Jordan Hicks. At this point, they would likely have to eat a substantial portion of the deal just to get anything of note.

It’s a rough spot for president of baseball operations Buster Posey, whose fingerprints are on all three deals, even though just one of them was technically signed under his watch. The Giants originally signed Chapman to a three-year deal with opt-outs heading into the 2024 season. At that time, Posey was on the club’s ownership board and Farhan Zaidi was still president of baseball operations. In September of 2024, the Giants signed Chapman to a six-year, $151MM extension. Reporting at the time indicating that Posey was instrumental in negotiating that deal with Chapman. Posey replaced Zaidi not long after. Adames was signed a few months later. The Giants traded for Devers a few months after that.

There aren’t easy answers. Presumably, the Giants don’t want to start a big rebuild when they have already been scuffling for most of the past decade. Even if they wanted to, they are fairly committed to the present. In addition to the three really big deals, they are paying Jung Hoo Lee a good amount of money through 2029 and Logan Webb through 2028. Houser and Harrison Bader are going to make hefty salaries through next year. They spent a bunch of money to hire Tony Vitello as their manager this year. In addition to his $3.5MM salary, they paid the University of Tennessee $3MM to buy out his contract and are still paying $4MM to Bob Melvin this year after picking up his contract option and then firing him.

Internal help may not be likely. The farm isn’t considered a disaster but is generally ranked in the middle of the 30 teams in the league. Most of their top prospects are in the lower levels. Addressing the weak spots of the roster via free agency is perhaps not plausible either, based on the way the club has seemingly pumped the brakes since adding Chapman, Adames and Devers to the books.

It seems Posey may be stuck trying to work around these three. He made one such move this weekend, flipping Patrick Bailey to the Guardians for a pitching prospect and a draft pick. Bailey is the best defensive catcher in the game but his offense has been poor and worsened this year. His limp bat may have been more tolerable if the rest of the lineup was producing but that was not the case.

That return won’t help the club in the near term. Rather, they have to hope that players like Jesús Rodríguez and Daniel Susac form adequate replacements for Bailey, with less value on defense but hopefully far more on offense.

If the club can’t climb back in the race in the coming months, more future-focused moves will be forthcoming this summer. Rental players like Robbie Ray, Luis Arraez and Tyler Mahle will be available but without huge value. Mahle has a 5.18 ERA. Ray is pitching well but his $25MM salary is hefty. Arraez is also having a good season but is making $12MM. A bigger sell-off will be difficult. Houser and Bader are both having poor seasons. The longer deals will be ever harder to move.

When Posey first got his current job, he spoke of wanting to get the Giants back into the memory-making business. The implication seemed to be a pivot towards big-name players. He has since hitched his wagon to Chapman, Adames and Devers. Now that all three horses are stuck in the mud, he may not be able to do much more than hope they dig themselves out.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images