Buster Posey: "Rafael Devers is a dude."
Everyone knows this by now. Rafael Devers is a member of the San Francisco Giants. While some folks are still pinching themselves because the Giants haven't been successful in trading for or grabbing star players in free agency, it's real. Devers is here. And according to Buster Posey, he's a dude. Well, of course he's a dude, but what Posey really wanted to say but couldn't publicly, is that Devers is really a MFer. He's going to make pitchers mouth that a lot while a member of the black and orange.
The journey of Devers going from the future of the Red Sox to the Giants in June, weeks before the trade deadline when the trading teams usually have more leverage, started with a text, according to Alex Pavlovic.
It also wasn't a smooth journey.
According to the piece:
The Red Sox, per sources, began negotiations by asking for top prospect Bryce Eldridge. The Giants considered him 100 percent off-limits, and eventually the conversation turned to players like Hayden Birdsong, Carson Whisenhunt, Harrison and 2024 first-rounder James Tibbs. The front office eventually parted with two of them, but the Red Sox initially pushed for a larger group. Johnson said negotiations "stalled" several times.
The piece went on to say that the Giants' leverage to get the deal done was their willingness to take on the full rest of the contract. But also, the Red Sox seemed to be over Devers, who has been unhappy seemingly all year.
The Giants felt the Red Sox were motivated to simply move on from Devers, who did not see eye to eye with management. Getting it done early allowed them to avoid the noise of the deadline, and the awkwardness that would come with potentially not trading Devers after rumors got out.
Was there a ton of risk by the Giants to take on that contract for that long in the post-prime years that can be really hard on both the player and team?
Baseball Prospectus writer Jarrett Seidler came on Thompson 2 Clark to talk about Devers and went on to say that of course the deal will more than likely age poorly, but Giants fans should be ecstatic for having a player of the caliber of Devers in his prime for the next three-to-four years.
Brad and I were at Oracle Park for Devers' first game as a Giants player and the crowd was loud and excited. While he struck out in his first at bat, he laced a double in his second to score a run, which we put on our YouTube channel as a short as well as on Instagram as a Reels post.
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Can Devers be the missing piece for the Giants offense? It's quite possible that they'll need another hitter to truly compete with the Dodgers and the rest of the top teams in the National League. But at least for now, they have given themselves a window of opportunity and have a real dude to hit in the middle of their order.
Garrett Gonzales
Host and podcaster at BSPN
Garrett is a father of five (Brian, JJ, and stepkids Asher, Felix, and Ada) and is married to Chrystal. He's a co-founder of Nextdoor.com and runs The Fight Game Media Network in addition to BSPN. He also does podcasts for F4W/Wrestling Observer. BSPN is his personal KNBR 680, which was his dream job as a teenager and a place he worked at in his early 20s.
He currently hosts all four shows on BSPN.
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