Rafael Devers Trade To Giants Puts Pressure On Phillies

It doesnt seem like the Boston Red Sox trading disgruntled star Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants should impact the Phillies, but it does — big time.

On Sunday night, the Red Sox and Giants announced a shocker of a deal that ships Devers to the West Coast in exchange for two Major League pitchers, Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks, and two minor leaguers.

In one move, the Giants massively boosted their weakest unit — their offense. Devers, who‘s slashing .272/.401/.504, socked his 15th home run of the season Sunday; that’s one more homer than San Francisco‘s left-handed hitters have hit this year. As CBS Sports baseball pundit Mike Axisa notes about the deal, “We needn’t overthink this. The team that gets the star almost always wins the trade, and the Giants just acquired one of the best hitters in the sport.”

That brings us to the Phillies, and the pressure the Devers deal dumps onto Philly. Yes, the Phils are battling the Mets (and maybe eventually the Braves) for the NL East crown but they also currently sit in the top Wild Card slot, just 1½ games in front of San Francisco in the WC standings. So, its feasible that the Phillies will be in a playoff race with the Giants as much as the Mets come September.

Enter the burning question: Does the Giants beefing up their offense compel the Phils to do the same？ Well, it should. Especially after the Phillies missed out on Devers, who could have filled the power void left by Bryce Harper who recovers from a nagging wrist injury. (Sorry, Otto Kemp is not the answer.)

In fact, speculation arose that the Phils would target Devers once the All-Star third baseman and Boston management began feuding over a position switch earlier this spring. Getting Devers could have sent third baseman Alec Bohm to first base and Harper back to the outfield. But that idea is dead, so why dwell on it？

Philly should look for a bopper elsewhere to help their lagging offense, which ranks fifteenth in home runs with 75 and tenth in slugging at .404. Even with a healthy Harper, the teams offensive output is nothing scary.

It‘s likely Phillies president of baseball operation Dave Dombrowski is hunting for an offensive upgrade, probably not of Devers’ caliber, however. And its also likely that Dombrowski is targeting the weak-hitting outfield to improve. Entering the weekend, Phillies outfielders — primarily Nick Castellanos in right, a platoon of Brandon Marsh and Johan Rojas in center and Max Kepler in left — ranked 20th in slugging (.371) and tied for 21st in OPS (.681). They combined for 0.3 WAR, according to FanGraphs, fewer than only the Pirates, White Sox, Guardians, Rockies, and Royals.

At the moment, the Phillies aren‘t linked to a specific player but in the past they have been connected to the White Sox’s Luis Robert and the Orioles‘ Cedric Mullins. Robert should drop off the Phils’ wish-list amid a miserable season but Mullins (11 HRs, eight SBs) would be an improvement over the Marsh-Rojas platoon in center.

Here‘s where Devers going to S.F. really throws pressure on the Phillies: He’s another left-handed monster (along with Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Juan Soto) that the Phils would need to neutralize amid a deep playoff run. So that would require them trading for a left-handed reliever. The teams biggest lefty weapon, Jose Alvarado, is currently serving an 80-game PED suspension and out for the postseason.

Other Phillies‘ lefties, Matt Strahm and Tanner Banks, probably don’t have the bullets to face Devers, Ohtani, Freeman and Soto in a high-leverage playoff moment. Strahms fastball has lost some zip, down more than a mile since 2024, and Banks is built for a middle-relief role.

So is there an available late-inning lefty that the Phillies could get？ Maybe Aroldis Chapman if Boston goes into full sell mode. The top-shelf relievers presumed to be available are all right-handed: Tampa Bay‘s Pete Fairbanks, Baltimore’s Félix Bautista, Angels‘ Kenley Jansen and Washington’s Kyle Finnegan. And the Phillies could use any one of them.

So back to the question: Who‘s the available lefty？ Maybe he’s on the roster already. Maybe its starter Jesus Luzardo who could be converted into a reliever for the postseason and whose 98-mph fastball would play up big against those left-handed-hitting monsters like Devers.