What’s going to happen with Willy Adames?

Willy Adames is a good player. A 28-year-old with almost 20 career WAR, he’s been a very good defensive shortstop who is a streaky hitter but who has had an OPS+ of at least 109 in five of his seven seasons (including 2024). He’s had at least three WAR in each of his three seasons as a Brewer, including 2021, when he was traded to Milwaukee in late May, and he’s on pace to have about four this year.

Adames will be a free agent after this season, and given the Brewers’ recent track record, few expect him to stay in Milwaukee; others think he could still be traded this year before the trade deadline. In the wake of his big home run on Monday, it’s worth exploring: what are the Brewers’ options when it comes to Adames? What might they do, and what should they do?

Before we can answer those questions, I found myself wondering: where does Adames stack up among the league’s shortstops? He’s definitely good, but there are a lot of good shortstops in the league. Let’s check it out.

How does Adames stack up at the position?

To get an answer to this question, I looked at the starting shortstops for each team in the league and I ranked them in tiers. I didn’t rank the players within the tiers, but this gives a decent breakdown, I think. This also allows a bit of a look at the landscape of the position across the league, which will be important later. Some of you will probably disagree with me on some of these, but here’s what I came up with:

Tier One: Stars

Mookie Betts (LAD, 31 years old)
Gunnar Henderson (BAL, 22)
Francisco Lindor (NYM, 30)
Corey Seager (TEX, 30)
Trea Turner (PHI, 31 soon)
Bobby Witt Jr. (KCR, 24 soon)

Tier Two (A): Good Players, 25 or Younger

CJ Abrams (WSH, 23)
Elly De La Cruz (CIN, 22)
Ezequial Tovar (COL, 22)
Anthony Volpe (NYY, 23)
Masyn Winn (STL, 22)

Tier Two (B): Good Players, 26 or Older

Adames (MIL, 28)
Bo Bichette (TOR, 26)
Carlos Correa (MIN, 29)
J.P. Crawford (SEA, 29)
Ha-Seong Kim (SDP, 28)
Jeremy Peña (HOU, 26)
Trevor Story* (BOS, 31)
Dansby Swanson (CHC, 30)

*Story is out for the year, and David Hamilton has played the most SS in Boston, with Vaughn Grissom also getting time. Story also hasn’t had a healthy season since 2021, so it’s hard to know.

Tier Three: Young Players With Promise

Oneil Cruz (PIT, 25)
Marco Luciano (SFG, 22)
Zach Neto (LAA, 23)
Geraldo Perdomo* (ARI, 24)
Brayan Rocchio (CLE, 23)

*Perdomo is hurt, and Blaze Alexander has started the most games for Arizona. Top prospect Jordan Lawlar, also hurt, is a shortstop.

Tier Four: They’ll Do

Orlando Arcia (ATL, 29)
Vidal Bruján* (MIA, 26)
José Caballero (TB, 27)

*Miami also uses Tim Anderson, who I think is just bad now.

Tier Five: We Should Talk About This

Javier Báez (DET, 31)
Paul DeJong (CWS, 30)
Max Schuemann (OAK, 27 soon)

There you have it: I see 11 players who I would definitely rather have than Adames, and I see him as part of a group of eight players in the “Good, a little older” tier. And, of course, everyone in this tier is not the same: notably, Correa has a much stronger track record than most of these players, is still only 29, and could re-enter the “stars” category with a strong season; Bichette, similarly, has been really good the last three years but is off to a bad start in 2024.

You also can probably successfully argue that a few of the players in the “good young players” tier aren’t quite as good as Adames is at this moment, but they’re players who I think project as being at least as good (or better) very soon, if they aren’t already.

With these considerations, I see Adames as right around the middle of the league: somewhere between 14^th and 16^th or so. That strikes me as a little surprising, lower than I would have guessed, but when you look around, there are just a lot of good shortstops.

So, what are the Brewers’ options?

Milwaukee could trade Adames before the trade deadline at the end of July.

I don’t see this as likely. Matt Arnold witnessed first-hand the blowback that David Stearns got when he traded Josh Hader in the midst of a division race, even if that trade looks better and better the further we get from it. It looks like Milwaukee is going to be in this race for the long haul, and it would be difficult to explain to the fan base why this popular, good player was being traded.

If Milwaukee traded Adames while the team was still competing for the postseason, there are real questions of depth, too. Yes, you probably move Joey Ortiz (or possibly Brice Turang) to shortstop. Who plays third base? Do the Brewers have enough trust in Tyler Black as a fielder, or in Oliver Dunn or Andruw Monasterio as a hitter? That’s putting a lot of faith in unproven players, especially if you’re truly trying to win.

There’s also the question of what you’d actually be able to get for Adames, and who might need him. In terms of need, someone could always get hurt, but here are teams I could conceivably see being in the market for a shortstop in a short-term (only until the end of the season) role:

• Cleveland. The Guardians are surprisingly tearing it up so far this season, at 36-18 and with a 2.5-game lead in the AL Central at the end of play on Monday. They’re starting young Brayan Rocchio, a 23-year-old top-100 prospect who has looked good in the field so far but who hasn’t hit much at all. If Cleveland continues to look like a contender, Adames makes some sense as a short-term upgrade that doesn’t block Rocchio beyond this season.
• Arizona. They’re under .500, but they’re also the defending NL champs. Geraldo Perdomo, their starter last season, has been hurt all year but is supposedly nearing a return. But he’s a player without a big track record who will be joining up mid-stream.
• Detroit. With Cleveland and Kansas City looking real and the preseason favorite Twins still 2.5 games ahead of them, the fourth-place Tigers may yet be a year or two from contention, in which case Adames doesn’t make sense as a deadline pickup. But this division was not expected to be very good, and both the Guardians and Royals could lose steam over the summer. If Detroit finds themselves in striking distance, they might need a different answer to the Javy Báez problem.
• Tampa Bay. Just like Arizona and Detroit, the Rays are under .500 and may not reach contention this year. But I’ve learned to never doubt the Rays. They don’t have a big track record as buyers, and they’re also the team that traded Adames to Milwaukee, which might make things weird, but Adames would be an upgrade over José Caballero.
• Atlanta. I’d definitely keep my eye on Atlanta, though I think they’re more likely an Adames suitor in free agency after the season than they are a trade partner in July. Sunday’s injury to Ronald Acuña Jr. and the earlier Tommy John surgery for Spencer Strider may also make the Braves less likely to give up assets at the trade deadline.

That’s not that many teams, and it’s equally likely at this point that Arizona, Tampa Bay, and Detroit just fail to right the ship and are never close enough to be buyers. There is also, of course, the possibility that Adames (or an incumbent) could be moved off of shortstop, but that opens up a whole different can of worms that I’m not going to get into today.

What might the Brewers get in a trade like this? Well, there aren’t a ton of comparable situations. The closest comparison, I think, is when Báez was traded from Chicago to the Mets at the 2021 trade deadline. He was also just two months from free agency, and had roughly similar career value at the time, though Báez in 2021 was only a couple years removed from a second-place MVP finish. Báez was packaged with pitcher Trevor Williams, who was a 29-year-old having a mediocre season as a reliever, for center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. Crow-Armstrong didn’t become the highly touted prospect he is now until after the 2022 season, but he was still a first-round pick, and going into 2021 he was rated by MLB Pipeline as the Mets’ No. 5 prospect.

Another player traded in the last few years who is an infielder with a somewhat similar profile to Adames (great glove, useful but inconsistent bat) is Matt Chapman. But Chapman was traded two full years before he hit free agency, so it’s not all that close of a comparison. In that trade, Oakland received Gunnar Hoglund (who became their No. 7 prospect), Kevin Smith (No. 15), Zach Logue (No. 21), and reliever Kirby Snead. Pretty underwhelming.

One more trade that doesn’t feel the same but maybe could be: the Brewers acquiring Eduardo Escobar at the 2021 trade deadline. Escobar at that time hadn’t had the career that Adames has had now, but he was a current All-Star when the trade happened, and in his last non-pandemic season before the trade, he hit 29 doubles, 10 triples, and 35 homers and knocked in 118 runs. The Brewers had to give up only Cooper Hummell and Alberto Ciprian to acquire Escobar. Ciprian was out of affiliated ball by 2023, and Hummell, who was never ranked as a top-30 prospect, appeared briefly in the major leagues in 2022 with Arizona and even more briefly in 2023 with Seattle. He hasn’t been back. This was mostly a cost-cutting move by the very bad 2021 Diamondbacks.

Trea Turner was traded at the 2021 deadline, but he had another year before free agency, and that trade also included Max Scherzer, who was not exactly a throw-in. Francisco Lindor was traded from Cleveland to the Mets before the 2021 season, when he had a year left, but Lindor was quite a bit better than Adames, he was younger, and the Mets intended to sign him to a long contract when he became a free agent. There are some big names in those trades—Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray in the Turner trade, Andrés Gimenez in the Lindor one—but I would again like to stress that they aren’t all that similar to what you would expect to get for Adames.

I just think that if Adames were to be traded at this year’s trade deadline, most people would be unhappy with the return, and if the Brewers are in the division race — it looks like they will be — I don’t think the team will feel it’s worth it to take the PR hit, especially given that they’ll be able to recoup a draft pick if Adames leaves in free agency and they make him a qualifying offer.

Milwaukee could let Adames walk in free agency.

This is an option, maybe the most likely one. If you look at that list of shortstops above, is there anything you notice? Here’s something that stuck out to me: there’s not a single regular starting shortstop in Major League Baseball right now who is over 31 years old. Adames will be there in year four of whatever free agent deal he signs after the season, and I do not expect that the Milwaukee Brewers see an older shortstop who isn’t necessarily a “star” as a good investment for them. With Turang and Ortiz, the Brewers have two younger options who both look good who can both play shortstop. Milwaukee will likely need to make an outside move for at least one infielder next season, especially if Rhys Hoskins opts out, but they could look for shorter-term options—like they did with Hoskins this year, or Avisaíl García and Hunter Renfroe in years past—to fill those gaps.

That math may be different for another team. I mentioned Atlanta as a potential trade partner, and they seem like an even more logical landing spot in free agency; they’ve been starting Orlando Arcia at shortstop, and while he’s been okay and he’s cheap ($2 million in 2025, a $2 million team option in 2026), the Braves expect to be World Series contenders every year, and he’s the weakest link in their lineup. Adames fits that team from a timeline perspective, and they would likely be able to afford him without too much trouble.

It’s always possible that the Dodgers could decide that they don’t want Mookie Betts to continue being their shortstop, and if that’s the case, they could be an option for Adames as well. They’ve spent a ton of money, but it always seems like they’ve got more, and they’ve got money coming off the books this season, namely in the expiring contracts of Teoscar Hernández (who they may want to re-sign) and Jason Heyward.

Finally, I don’t think it would be a shock to see a team that already has a good shortstop in place make a move for Adames. The Toronto Blue Jays could be a team like that—they’ve got a hole at second base, and they might see their best option for filling that hole as being asking Bo Bichette to move in order to make room for Adames. That’s just one example. The San Diego Padres have something like 14 shortstops on their major league roster at the moment. There is precedent.

That leaves one more option.

The Brewers could sign Adames as a free agent.

It seems like a foregone conclusion to most fans that Adames will leave. I understand why people think that way: the Brewers already have a lot of money committed to Christian Yelich over the next few years and adding another expensive contract for a player who is about to be 30 doesn’t seem particularly likely.

But I also think Adames might get less than everyone thinks in free agency. It’s true that he’s one of the better free agents available, but he’s not necessarily going to be the best free agent shortstop—Ha-Seong Kim has a mutual option that I would think he will decline, as he is slated to make only $7 million next year. The teams we think of as big spenders already have shortstops in place: the Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, Mets, and Rangers are set, and the Giants are certainly hoping Marco Luciano fills that role for them. Boston doesn’t seem interested in spending money, or contending, at the moment. Atlanta is the one team that seems to make sense as shortstop shoppers. But if they are in the market, what if they sign Kim instead of Adames?

We just saw what happened in an unfavorable environment for not-quite-prime free agents. Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger, and Blake Snell were all players who I would argue are in a similar value zone as Adames, and none of them got anywhere close to what they thought they would get as free agents last offseason. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that Adames could be available on a one-year deal, sort of like the one Teoscar Hernández got last year from the Dodgers (1 year, $23.5 million), or maybe he even takes the qualifying offer. Or maybe he’s willing to take a medium-term deal that isn’t crazy, something like 3 years, $65 million (Chapman, who hit free agency at two years older than Adames will, got 3 years, $54 million), or 4 years, $80 million, maybe with an opt out or two.

That would certainly be disappointing for Adames: I’m sure he’s looking at the 7-year, $177-million deal that Dansby Swanson got before the 2023 season, and I honestly understand why he would feel he should get a contract similar to that one. But teams are nervous about TV revenue, and they just don’t seem willing to spend all that much on free agents at the moment, unless they’re in the very top tier, guys like Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, or Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Conclusions

I don’t think Adames will be traded this season. I still think the most likely outcome is that they make a qualifying offer, wait for him to sign elsewhere, and pocket the draft pick. But I don’t think there’s no chance that he could be back with the Brewers in 2025, even if it’s because he takes the qualifying offer, as I just don’t think his market is going to be nearly as robust as he hopes.