Picture this: your team has been underperforming for over a month now. Your pitching staff hasn’t been fully healthy for a single day in 2025, spring or regular season. The arms that have stayed healthy are either battling back from injury or regressing to the point where they needed to be shut down. Your Opening Day 3 and 4 hitters are on the IL missing significant time. Your Opening Day 5 hitter had regressed to a point where he became unplayable. Your defense leads the league in errors. Yet, your team remains competitive and fights its way back over .500 into a playoff spot thanks to a major hot streak, winning eight of their last 10 games, three consecutive series (including their archrivals twice), and some fantastic starting pitching for the first time this season.
Finally, a glimpse of hope! Vibes are through the roof… until, of course, mere hours later, when you decide to trade away your homegrown franchise superstar in spite of a mess you yourself made in the first place. This is the Boston Red Sox I’m talking about. A total mess dating back to the winter. And they ended up paying the price in the biggest way possible.
Rafael Devers is now a San Francisco Giant. Let’s get right into it…
Trade Breakdown
The full reported trade between the Red Sox and Giants, sending Rafael Devers to San Francisco. pic.twitter.com/wxw3daEVAh
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) June 16, 2025
FanSided insider Robert Murray first broke the news at 6:51 pm EDT on Sunday night, causing a tidal wave of chaos across the Major League Baseball community. Rafael Devers, and the full remainder of his massive 10-year, $313.5 million contract, was to be traded to the San Francisco Giants for a four-player package.
Devers, 28, slashed .272/.401/.504/.905 with a career-high 148 wRC+, .389 wOBA, and 17% BB rate with the Red Sox through 73 games. That’s a massive acquisition for a Giants team that ranks 20th in wRC+, 21st in OBP, and 22nd in OPS this season despite fighting head-to-head with the Dodgers for the NL West.
Devers had been in the news countless times for wacky, ticky-tack “beef” with the media. He waited out reporters at Citi Field last season, causing some workers to be upset that they waited a couple of extra minutes at the stadium for a nothing burger. He was then asked several unprofessional questions during his first spring interview session at the Fort this year, including about his weight. Later on in the year, it was said that Devers was becoming a distraction, which players openly disagreed with.
These stories don’t come out of nowhere, though. Clearly something was wrong. The Red Sox blatantly miscommunicated and lied to Devers’ face over the course of the offseason. They told him he’s going to play third base. Then convinced him to DH. Then asked him to play first base after Casas had season-ending surgery. Devers was fed up, and it appears so was the Sox brass… all over a situation they could have simply avoided with better communication.
Boston acquired lefthander Kyle Harrison as the main arm back in the deal. He’s been ok overall, posting a career 4.48 ERA/4.56 FIP through 182.2 innings. Harrison’s 2025 was off to a great start, posting a 2.54 ERA among other exceptional numbers through May as seen in my tweet here, but has allowed 8 ER in 9.1 IP this month.
Here are a couple of things that stood out to me:
- 118 Loc+
- 23% BP% ranks 2nd in MLB
- 5.3 PLV ranks 2nd
- 2.33 PLA ranks 14th
Harrison is just 23 years old and provides a much-needed additional lefty in the rotation. Ideally, the Sox, known for their desire in the sweeper/slider game, can help Harrison develop his secondaries and fulfill his top pitching prospect potential.
The Red Sox snagged veteran righty Jordan Hicks in the deal, who hasn’t quite panned out the way San Francisco wanted him to as a starter. I will note, it appears Hicks has been getting severely unlucky — his E-F (2.89) remains the worst in the majors. On top of this, his sky-high BABIP (.354, T-9th worst min. 40 IP) doesn’t help the cause either. He’s turned decent expected data: 3.86 xERA, 3.59 FIP, 3.82 xFIP. Hopefully, the sinker can tick back up in a bullpen role.
Outside of those two major league pieces, Boston also acquired two prospects, outfielder James Tibbs III and righthander Jose Bello. Tibbs III, a former 1st round pick, was one of Boston’s top targets along with Cam Smith and Trey Yesavage prior to Braden Montgomery falling into their laps. I reported in July of 2024 (here) that there was some talk regarding the Red Sox potentially selecting Tibbs at #12 overall.
Tibbs has a lot of what you want in a young slugger.
– hits the ball hard
– walks a lot
– limits whiff
– limits K%
– limits chase
– good against veloThe OBP machine joins Portland amid a 7-game hit streak. Curious to see how much they flip flop between OF/1B reps. https://t.co/oh5hOcFW3N
— G.G. (@ggeiss_mlb) June 16, 2025
Tibbs III does a lot of things right, as seen above. He’s already improved his Miss% from 32% to 19%, as noted by Baseball America in their latest update. However, he doesn’t move the needle competition-wise in 2025.
Neither does Jose Bello, the 20-year-old relief arm in rookie ball whom the Red Sox took a liking to. He’s put up superb numbers, including a 42% K rate in 18 innings with a 2.00 ERA/1.91 FIP this season. He generates lots of ground balls (53%). Perhaps the Sox attempt to expand on the usage and try him as a starter.
From a GM’s perspective, I understand both sides here. The Giants are going for it, point blank. They don’t lose anything of major value here. The Red Sox shed the weight of Devers’ entire contract, add to their need (quality pitching), and reset their investments to go big at the deadline and/or free agency next year. Then again, they also risk completely falling out of contention and destroying their win-now window they’ve begged their fans to be patient about for years.
From a fantasy perspective, obviously Devers is a must-roster. It’s fair to wonder about his HR total in a new ballpark, but his spray chart overlaid with Oracle Park should tell you everything you need to know. In fact, he has 17 xHR in SF compared to 15 actual HR in 2025, per savant. And like it says above, Devers is in line to post quite a few new career-highs, including a monster 17% BB rate.
None of Boston’s pieces are worth rostering right away. Harrison is intriguing in a deeper league, but he was optioned to Triple-A Worcester to tweak some things before making his Red Sox debut. Hicks is currently on the IL and CBO Craig Breslow has not yet officially stated what his role will be on the staff. Tibbs III is a sneaky roster in dynasty leagues but could be flipped by Boston at the deadline for a top arm if they’re buyers, per source, so be aware.
What This Could Mean In 2025
For the Giants, this means a whole lot. They are legit buyers and contenders. CBO Buster Posey is legit and wants to win now, which is great to hear. They’ve had fantastic contributions from the staff all year long and battled with the Dodgers for first place in their division despite an offense that’s been lacking quite a bit. Now, that’s changed with a borderline top 5 bat entering the mix.
For the Red Sox, it could go one of two ways. Obviously fans will be upset. Some may never forgive Breslow. But the team is still good and relatively competitive, and they haven’t gotten healthy yet. Boston could either (A) continue their hot streak, headlined by elite pitching and a new-look offense with the three-headed monster of Mayer/Anthony/Campbell leading the charge, or (B), start the selling process early, retool, and use 2025 as a developmental year so they can splurge in 2026 and really start the win-now window.
It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
