I spent most of the weekend with my head buried in fantasy baseball rosters. A key deadline in my longtime keeper league is approaching. A bunch of big deals, many of them today-for-tomorrow swaps, have already gone down.
And then MLB took over Sunday night and made a trade that dwarfs all of our make-believe stuff.
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Rafael Devers and the Boston Red Sox hit an awkward part of their marriage this year. Sunday, the Red Sox decided to call off the union entirely. Boston sent Devers to San Francisco in a shocking exchange. Four players came back to Boston: lefty starter Kyle Harrison, right-handed swingman Jordan Hicks, minor-league outfielder James Tibbs and minor-league reliever Jose Bello.
It ends a relationship of nearly 12 years between the Red Sox and Devers. The team signed Devers, then 16, as a free agent in August of 2013. He made his debut at the age of 20 and has been a star player, making three All-Star teams (a fourth nod looks imminent) and charting in five different MVP races.
Devers has never been better than this year, his age-28 season. He’s slashing .272/.401/.504, with 15 home runs and 58 RBI. His 56 walks was leading the American League. Whatever performance metric you prefer is likely a career-best, such as his 152 OPS+ and his 148 wRC+.
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Ironically, the impetus of this trade had nothing to do with Devers the hitter. When the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman in the offseason, it meant Devers was done as a third baseman in Boston, much to the incumbent’s chagrin. Devers has been a minus fielder for most of his career. The Red Sox initially told Devers that he’d be the full-time DH, then asked in-season if he’d move to first base after Triston Casas was injured. Devers, still stinging from the offseason demotion, balked at the move.
The other key element to this deal is money — Devers signed a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension prior to the 2024 season. These types of lengthy contracts are usually good bets to age poorly, and perhaps the Red Sox felt it was prudent to move Devers — now without any defensive value — before his bat started to decline. To be clear, those decline years are off in the future somewhere. Devers, we state again, is currently at his offensive peak.
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The current Devers wave could take a mild hit in San Francisco. Fenway Park is the second-friendliest place for scoring over the past three years, per Baseball Savant, while Oracle Park ranks 26th. If you run the metrics for left-handed offense, Fenway is second again, Oracle 27th. Fenway Park actually hurts left-handed power by about 10 percent, but Oracle Park is a 22-percent drag on lefty power.
Like many players, Devers has a home bias to his career stats: he’s slashed .292/.361/.522 at Fenway, .267/.338/.499 on the road. The second line is probably what San Francisco should expect moving forward, though home/road splits aren’t always about dimensions. Sometimes it’s nice to sleep in your own bed, eat home cooking, hang out in familiar surroundings. While his slash preferred Fenway, Devers does have more home runs on the road: 120 out of a suitcase, 95 in Boston.
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Devers might also miss the Boston undertow on offense — the Red Sox rank fifth in runs scored, the Giants rank 14th. But you’d expect those rankings to move towards each other with the Red Sox losing a major bat and the Giants acquiring one. Hash it all together and I suspect Devers loses just an eyelash of fantasy value through this trade, but it’s negligible. And it’s also plausible that his new team could provide an emotional boost; Devers no longer has to deal with the stress likely caused from the breakdown of his relationship in Boston. The Giants are also expected to make the playoffs from their current spot (64.8 percent, per Fangraphs) while the Red Sox are a longer shot (30.9 percent).
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The timing of this trade in Boston is curious given the team just swept the Yankees and climbed back into the Wild Card race in the American League. With Devers out of the mix, Boston has more lineup flexibility for young players like Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony, rookies who were likely to be squeezed from the roster when Bregman and Wilyer Abreu return from injuries in the next few weeks.
Anthony, Mayer and Kristian Campbell entered the year with glittering minor-league resumes, but all of them have struggled in their first MLB lap. Campbell had a hot first month but cooled quickly; he’s currently slashing .225/.324/.351 with six home runs. Mayer has a modest .224/.278/.469 slash but three homers in his 18 games, enough to push his OPS+ to 105, slightly above league average. Anthony had just one hit in 17 at-bats for his first week of action.
Boston needs to see the big picture here and let its young talent play, learn, make mistakes. Manager Alex Cora occasionally shields Mayer from left-handed pitching, for example — illogical in the long-term. Allow your high-end talent to grow.
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Boston fetched a modest return in exchange for its superstar, in part because San Francisco is assuming the full Devers contract. But Harrison and Tibbs do offer some prospect pedigree.
Harrison was a top-20 prospect on two of the primary clipboards before the 2023 season, and was the consensus No. 31 prospect a year later. His 182.2 innings of MLB work have been underwhelming (4.48 ERA, 1.297 WHIP), though he has averaged just under a strikeout per inning. The Red Sox initially optioned Harrison to Triple-A but that’s likely to be a short stay; he’s 23 and not far from another shot in the majors.
Tibbs might be the key to the trade, a first-round pick from 2024 who’s shown power and patience at High-A this year (.246/.379/.478, 12 home runs, 42 walks against 45 strikeouts). He’s a left-handed hitter who can man a corner outfield spot or play first base. The Athletic prospect analyst Keith Law ranked Tibbs the second-best prospect in the San Francisco system before the year. Tibbs is 22 and has the look of someone who could rise quickly through the minors.
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