“Blockbuster mid-June trade” is almost an oxymoron in Major League Baseball. Especially involving two elite franchises, both still in contention and trying to chase down their archrivals.
That’s why the swap sending Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox to the San Francisco Giants is much more than a Sunday night shocker. The ramifications of this deal will be felt for the next decade, likely through both organizations, with immediate impacts that will frame the final 90 games for both playoff hopefuls.
A look at the winners and losers from perhaps the biggest, earliest trade since Mike Piazza was shipped off from the Los Angeles Dodgers in May 1998:
Winners
San Francisco Giants
Oh, what winners. The Giants have been rebuffed in both trade and free agent negotiations over the past decade by (deep breath) Jon Lester, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Carlos Correa’s right fibula and who knows how many more we may not know about.
Now, they don’t have to worry about being used as stalking horses come next winter.
Devers is under contract for eight more seasons and $238.5 million, plus the roughly $15 million owed for the remainder this year and a $2 million reassignment bonus.
If you asked the Giants if they could acquire, for eight-plus years and about $250 million, a two-time Silver Slugger who averaged 32 home runs and an .873 OPS the past four seasons, has one of the best left-handed swings in the game and is just 28 years old, how soon would they say yes?
Sure, the Giants gave up young lefty Kyle Harrison, scuffling veteran Jordan Hicks, who has struggled to toggle between rotation and relief in recent years, and 2024 first-round pick James Tibbs, who has an .857 OPS at high-A yet at 22 isn’t exactly young for that circuit.
All those elements are replaceable. Luring an elite bat to San Francisco has proven almost impossible. And one just fell into the Giants’ lap.
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Buster Posey
It was an eye-opener when he elevated himself, with ownership’s blessing, to the No. 1 baseball job just four years removed from the playing field. Sure, he’s a smart and passionate baseball man, but how would this executive onboarding go?
Well, Posey proved he’s not afraid to roll the dice and burn a wad of ownership’s money.
The Giants have gone from dark horse to legit contender this year, their 41-30 record a mix of Farhan Zaidi holdovers, Posey tweaks and, perhaps, the greater sense of clarity and purpose that can come with a future Hall of Famer pushing the buttons.
Posey just solved for their “missing superstar slugger” problem. He also bought a ton of goodwill from San Francisco fans who already idolized him and would be ready to deify him if he gets the squad back to the World Series.
Willy Adames
It’s been a struggle going from Milwaukee’s hitter-friendlier park to San Francisco, where fly balls are gobbled up in the marine layer. A .202 average and 81 adjusted OPS were tough bags to carry with a recently signed $182 million contract.
Well, all of a sudden, Adames is no longer the highest-paid nor riskiest Giant acquisition. Additionally, sliding between Devers and, presumably, a healthy Matt Chapman in the lineup will take off a lot of heat and enhance the quality of pitches he’ll see.
Alex Bregman
The man who started all this is probably going to get a whole lot richer. Bregman signed a three-year, $120 million deal with a pair of opt-outs, creating the logjam that resulted in Devers’ bruised feelings, the Red Sox’s fumbling of the situation and the ultimate trade of Devers to the Giants.
And since joining Boston, he has made Fenway Park his playground, with 11 homers, a .938 OPS and 3.0 WAR in just 51 games, though a quad injury will keep him out until roughly the end of this month.
Now, imagine the ire in Boston if the Red Sox both trade Devers and fail to retain Bregman? The Red Sox just opened up a bunch of cash to bestow on Bregman – and also created greater need to keep him. Ka-ching!
Rafael Devers
So maybe it was never going to work out after the spring training flap about moving to DH, and the in-season flap about moving to first base in the wake of Triston Casas’s season-ending injury. Yet after a slow start, Devers has done nothing but mash for the Red Sox, with 15 homers, a .905 OPS and a nice parting gift: A home run off Max Fried to ensure the Red Sox’s 2-0 win and sweep of the Yankees.
Now, he gets a chance to hit the refresh button and begin a new relationship with a different regime. The Red Sox did not worry about hurting Devers’ feelings in spring, when manager Alex Cora noted that Devers’ $313.5 million was signed under a different general manager. He faces an odd situation in San Francisco: The great Matt Chapman will be out until around the All-Star break with a hand injury, leaving third base vacant.
The club just cut loose first baseman LaMonte Wade, with a long-term vacancy still looming there.
Would Devers consider bouncing from third base back to DH, or try learning a new position at first base, with a new club? The Red Sox would certainly smirk themselves to death if he did so, but this is a fresh start. The ball is in his court.
Losers
Boston Red Sox
Elite hitters simply aren’t easy to replace. In a cynical sense, the Red Sox harvested what they needed out of Devers: Signed him out of the Dominican Republic at 16, won a World Series with him five years later, retained him with a nine-figure deal after the embarrassment of the Mookie Betts trade and then moved on.
But no matter how many highly-rated hitting prospects you hoard, there’s simply no substitute for a grown-ass slugger who hits 30 home runs falling out of bed, and up to 38 in a career year. Boston will bear the non-linear growing pains of its new core over the next few years and, like Betts, may be cursed with trying in vain to replace Raffy in coming years.
Craig Breslow
To be sure, the second-year president of baseball operations will have to own this one – just like his predecessor, Chaim Bloom, will forever be The Man Who Traded Mookie.
The stealth attack nature of this deal – literally the entire industry was blindsided until just a few minutes before 7 p.m. ET Sunday – means Breslow pulled it off in silence, but also didn’t get an overwhelming return to rid the Red Sox of Devers and his contract.
There’s a decent chance the Red Sox traded a cornerstone for a swingman lefty (Harrison), a flamethrowing reliever (Hicks) and a pair of minor-league lottery tickets. From a return standpoint, Tibbs is probably the key: He has an .857 OPS and just 45 strikeouts at high-A, but turns 23 in October and has several hurdles before bringing his lefty bat to Fenway.
In a year or two, there will be a better overall read of Breslow’s tenure. Should the guys acquired in the deal fail to pop, and the Sox scuffle in Devers’ absence, the tote board won’t look so great for Breslow.
That great young Red Sox core would be a credit to his predecessor, Bloom, while the Breslow regime will be known as the group that couldn’t coexist with a superstar, despite their highly-publicized sortie to Kansas City to try and talk Devers into playing first.
Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Kristian Campbell
Ah, yes, that great young core. This is exactly what they didn’t need as all three embark on what should be fantastic careers.
All are now with the big club and displaying the bouts of brilliance and frustration that come with oh-so-young careers. Anthony, the game’s greatest hitting prospect, was 1-for-17 in his first week, the one hit being a game-winning double.
Hey, all of that is just fine. The kids will develop in time, and will need some onramp to realize their best versions of themselves.
But you know what they didn’t need? A lineup anchor dealt away just as the club was getting hot, turning the glare of the fan base to this young trio that’s expected to be the future and, increasingly, the present.
They’ll surely be what they’ll be, and in all three cases, that may very well be greatness. But a challenging major league assimilation just got a lot tougher.
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