Three reasons to be optimistic about the Giants’ three most struggling hitters

A couple of these are pretty obvious.

It’s really tough to find massive fault with the San Francisco Giants as they’ve raced to a 16-9 record to start the 2025 season. Oh sure, maybe their poorly constructed bench will be a liability eventually, but April isn’t eventually. Still, there are some soft spots in the lineup to keep an eye on. LaMonte Wade Jr., Heliot Ramos, and the most expensive San Francisco Giant ever, Willy Adames, have had varying degrees of bad starts. Here’s why that’s okay.

Let’s start with the mega-obvious reason why it’s not time to panic: it’s April 24th. The Giants have played 25 games. It’s still very early in the season, and you can chalk it up to “the pitchers are ahead of the hitters in some cases” if you want. Otherwise, LaMonte Wade’s 6-for-61 start was roughly duplicated last July through August when he hit a 10-for-59 patch. Willy Adames is still adjusting to his new team and the new expectations his mega deal provides. Heliot Ramos is adjusting to the league’s offseason adjustments to him.

Okay, with that sort of global reason out in the open for all three — and, truly, if you’ve spent any chunk of your life watching baseball, then you know dang well that this is usually the case — I’ll now provide two more reasons for each player why their outlooks still look better than the present.

LaMonte Wade Jr. – .098/.233/.230 (74 PA)

I will admit that things are going extremely bad for LWJ right now, and not in the “well, you know, he’s hitting the ball hard, he’s just hitting into some bad luck.” In fact, he’s making far less quality contact here in the small sampling. His 4.8% barrel rate is nearly half of his career rate. His Hard Hit rate, according to Statcast, is down to 31%. His overall contact rate of 78.9% is right in line with the last couple of seasons, but with a slight wrinkle: he’s swinging at more pitches outside of the zone right now. Again — it’s a small enough sample that a good week will fix the numbers, but we’re not looking at bad luck, we’re looking at a struggling player.

A few weeks ago, I was dismayed by the very small sampling of LWJ’s bat speed. Nearly a month into the season and… yeah, it’s still bad. His 69.8 mph is below the league average and a couple of ticks below his own career average — but, it’s also right there with Mike Yastrzemski’s who has had far better results here in the first 25 games (.269/.402/.493).

All of this said, here are the two reasons for optimism:

• He’s still drawing walks. Although, that’s about all he’s doing — but, it shows that his pitch recognition skills are still there. His chase rate of 17.7% is 97th percentile and his 14.9% walke rate is 89th. Some of his added swing and miss could be a mix of frustration and different approaches by the opposition. This is one of those underlying skills that typically point to a productive player.
• There’s still some power in that bat. Sure, the batspeed data might suggest “he’s aging!” but his average exit velocity is 90.6 mph, the same as it was last season. So, he’s not making lots of hard contact because he’s chasing more, but he’s still shown flashes of thunder. You might not be convinced by the eye test, but the numbers provide a more compelling case that it’s a matter of timing and adjustment.

Edited to add this in during the 4th inning of Thursday afternoon’s game against the Brewers: Please, please remember that this article is about his bat. Let us never speak of his defense… again?

Heliot Ramos – .233/.279/.388 (111 PA)

Last year, he struck out 135 time and walked 37 for a 3.65 K/BB. This season, he’s struck out 28 times and walked 6, bad enough for a 4.67 K/BB. He’s had just 4 extra base hits during this 17 games in 17 days stretch the Giants are on, too.

So, what’s going on here? It’s pretty simple. Bro is swinging at everything. His 55% swing rate is the highest of his brief career. His outside of the strike zone swinging has lept from 28.7% at the end of 2024 to 37.2% in the early going. This has meant more contact, of course, but more doesn’t mean better. His exit velocity is averaging 89.8 mph (91.5 mph last season, 90.9 the season before) and his Hard Hit rate is off by 5% compared to last season.

The league hasn’t radically changed their approach to him,. He’s been handcuffed by the humble 4-seam fastball, with a 30.1% Whiff rate and 42.3% strikeout rate against it. Last year, he was great against that pitch; so, it does suggest timing and adjustment. But I promised you two reasons, so here they are:

• His 73.3 mph batspeed is right there with some of the best in the sport (Mike Trout, Jackson Chourio).
• He is KEE-RUSHING pitches over the middle part of the plate:

Willy Adames – .198/.268/.267 (112 PA)

This is a tough one. It’s obvious that he’s trying to impress, but it hasn’t clicked yet. It feels counterintuitive, but despite all the strikeouts and weak contact, he’s actually swinging the bat less. His 47.6% swing rate is below his career average (48.6%) and off the pace from the past few seasons (basically, 50%). There’s a 1% increase in swings outside of the strike zone compared to last season (27.5%) and a 1% decrease in outside the zone contact (45.9%). His total contact is 72.2%, down 1.7% from last season, but still right in line with his career average (72.5%). Why will it all work out — beyond that it simply has to, given the length of his contract?

• His Hard hit rate (40.5%) is right in line with his career. Same with the average exit velocity.
• He is not striking out more. His 25% strikeout rate equals last season and is close to the prior two seasons. His career strikeout rate is 27.1% anyway. It’s the walk rate (11.1% & 10.8% the last two seasons, 8.9% right now) that’s off.

I would diagnose him as being in the same boat as LaMonte Wade Jr. The bat and the body seem fine. It’s just a matter of timing and gettnig into a rhythm. Fortunately, the Giants are playing so well overall right now that none of these guys need to figure it out by tomorrow.