Adames posted a .782 OPS last season — not elite, but genuinely solid production for a shortstop. The problem is the Giants are stockpiling shortstops the way other teams stockpile relievers: optimistically and without a clear exit plan. Marco Luciano and Tyler Fitzgerald both profile as future middle infield starters. Both are younger. Both are cheaper. Neither one is going anywhere.

So where does Adames actually play? The front office answer is "shortstop, for now" — which is GM-speak for "we'll figure it out." Third base is the obvious fallback, but Adames has logged fewer than 50 career games there and the defensive metrics at short are already unremarkable. Moving him to third doesn't automatically improve the defense; it just moves the problem.

The Giants are paying him roughly $23 million annually against a payroll that has to stay functional around a rotation that isn't fully built yet. That's real money committed to a player whose positional value is already depreciating on a seven-year clock. By 2028 this could look like the kind of deal that quietly handcuffs a rebuild.

None of this means Adames can't contribute. At his best, he's a .270 hitter with 25-homer pop and a passable glove. That's a legitimate piece. But a legitimate piece signed through 2031 at shortstop, on a team with younger shortstops coming, is a roster construction problem the Giants already knew they were creating when they signed him. They just bet they'd be good enough by then that it wouldn't matter.

That's a lot of faith to put in a depth chart that doesn't exist yet.