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Willy Adames deserved to get paid. There’s no disputing that.
Since his arrival in 2018, his 21.3 fWAR ranked top 50 in the Majors, virtually tied with both Corbin Burnes (21.5) and Blake Snell (21.0), who also inked massive deals this offseason.
His 140 home runs since the beginning of 2019? Third-best among middle infielders, behind only Marcus Semien (163) and Francisco Lindor (150). It also tied Nick Castellanos’ mark, and put him slightly ahead of both Alex Bregman (133) and Jose Altuve (132).
On defense, he had a bit of a rough go in 2024, but he was one of the better defensive shortstops between 2022-23. In fact, per FanGraphs Defense rating for those two seasons, only shortstop Dansby Swanson and a handful of catchers added more value on defense than Adames did.
However,