The Giants are hoping this year’s draft will be transformational. With the No. 4 overall pick, it better be.
The top end of the July 11 draft will be stacked with shortstops and led by UCLA’s Roch Cholowsky, considered the nation’s premier amateur.
It just so happens the Giants already are loaded with gifted shortstops at the lower levels of their minor-league system and have their own big-league shortstop, Willy Adames, under contract through 2031.
Not that Adames, 30, will continue to play short through the remainder of his contract. It’s no stretch to suggest he’ll eventually transition to another position, perhaps second base, but until further notice, he’s “our guy,” according to manager Tony Vitello. Tuesday night, in the Giants’ 7-5 loss to the Diamondbacks, Adames homered, tripled, and scored twice, but he also committed his second throwing error in two days (leading to an unearned run) and majors-leading 10th error of the season. His -7 outs above average is worse than every shortstop but one.
In Adames’ defense, Vitello said, “We probably get more ground balls than any team in Major League Baseball and also more balls in play, so you’re going to get more opportunities. It’s truly a challenge to not just work on your craft every day and keep up your habits, but to stay locked in for all nine innings because of the consistency of baseballs and opportunities coming your way during the course of a game.”
Vitello has a point. Of balls put in play off Giants pitchers, 46.3% have been grounders. That’s the second-highest percentage in the majors behind the Yankees, and the flyball rate is second lowest, just ahead of the Cardinals.
Still, it’s no excuse. Not when Adames’ double-play partner, second baseman Luis Arráez, has been playing spectacular defense under infield coach Ron Washington’s tutelage. Washington, along with coach Hector Borg, spent significant time working with Adames before Tuesday’s game, but miscues keep happening.
Granted, Adames had a rough start defensively last year, too, and rallied to be an above-average defender. It might happen again. It might not. Either way, the Giants wouldn’t shy away from drafting a shortstop if they deem he’s the best player available at No. 4.
The beauty of young shortstops in the draft is they’re generally the best athletes on their college or high school teams and, once in the pros, show the ability to smoothly transition to other positions. Drafting a shortstop hardly means he’ll stay at the position. That’s rarely the case. Back in the day, Brian Sabean drafted shortstop Joe Panik and turned him into a second baseman and drafted shortstop Matt Duffy and made him a third baseman.
He also drafted Brandon Crawford, the one shortstop who was too good to move off the position.
Fast forward to 2026, and the Giants could draft any one of the highly touted shortstops on the board depending on who’s available. They’d love for Cholowsky to fall to them, but that would mean the White Sox, Rays, and Twins all take a pass, which seems highly unlikely. A couple of high school shortstops are expected to be selected in the first five picks: Grady Emerson of Fort Worth, Texas, and Jacob Lombard of Miami. And Alabama’s Justin Lebron and Kentucky’s Tyler Bell are projected first-rounders.
It’s possible president of baseball operations Buster Posey will lean toward taking a college player at No. 4 and anticipate an accelerated path to the big leagues. The Giants’ championship era was built largely with homegrown talent, including several players coming out of the college ranks such as Posey himself, Crawford, Brandon Belt, and Tim Lincecum.
For now, the Giants are deep in young shortstops from Josuar Gonzalez and Luis Hernández in rookie ball to Jhonny Level at Low A San Jose to Gavin Kilen at High A Eugene. They can’t possibly keep them all as shortstops, so some will ultimately move to other positions, and some could be traded if the Giants choose to make deals from a position of strength.
“They’re all unbelievably talented,” Giants VP of player development Randy Winn said Tuesday. “I think they push each other. They challenge each other. You can see what the bar is. It’s been fun to watch.”
Winn said of the young shortstops in question, Kilen is furthest advanced, which is only because he’s older, plays on a higher-level farm team, and came from a major college (Tennessee). All have appeared at other infield spots since arriving in pro ball. As Winn said, “I don’t think it hurts their development to play other positions.”
The Giants will approach the draft with a $17,350,600 bonus pool after adding a $3.2 million slot value for the 29th pick, a competitive-balance pick, which they received from Cleveland in the May 9 Patrick Bailey trade. One theory is that they enhanced their pool to throw more money at Cholowsky, even scare off other teams from drafting him that might be less willing to break the bank with an extravagant signing bonus.
Cholowsky, born in Vallejo and raised in Arizona, said he was a Giants fan growing up and idolized Crawford, who preceded him at UCLA. According to USA Today, (opens in new tab) Posey and Crawford had meetings with Cholowsky, who could always threaten to return to UCLA for his senior year if any team but the Giants considers drafting him, but it’s doubtful he’d surrender a signing bonus topping $10 million to go back to college.
The Giants have had mixed results with top-five picks, hitting on Will Clark (No. 2, 1985), Matt Williams (No. 3, 1986), and Posey (No. 5, 2008) but not so much on Jason Grilli (No. 4, 1997) and Joey Bart (No. 2, 2018). Considering the struggling state of the franchise and desperation to recover, the Giants will need to win big in the draft.
Asked in general about the value of college shortstops, Vitello the old college coach said, “You’re probably a great athlete who’s versatile and a leader. We’re in a world where everyone wants it now, now, now. And it’s a little easier to envision a guy making a quicker jump from college (as opposed to high school) where 16 months from now he’s in the big leagues.”
To be clear, nothing is changing with Adames anytime soon. He’s the shortstop of the foreseeable future because that’s why the Giants granted him a seven-year, $182 million contract before last season. But with so many promising young shortstops on track to the big leagues, and with perhaps another coming in the draft, an Adames position change at some point isn’t out of the question.
The question is who would replace him at shortstop. The list of possibilities is long and could soon grow.
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