
For all the flurry of activity in the final hours and minutes leading up to Thursday’s trade deadline, there wasn’t a more significant player dealt or more massive contract moved than the eight-plus years and $250-plus million the Giants took on when they acquired slugger Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox.
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The huge catch is that the Devers trade happened in mid-June, and the Giants, counter to all intuition, responded by becoming the worst team in the major leagues over the next six weeks.
If it wasn’t obvious when they dealt key reliever Tyler Rogers to the Mets on Wednesday, then it became obvious with their inactivity Thursday as the names kept coming off the board: the major leagues’ most aggressive buyers in June no longer had an appetite to add. Given their recent play and the state of their minor league system, it was the least surprising development of the day.
The Giants made one more major subtraction from their bullpen at the buzzer, trading former All-Star Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees for what appears to be a disappointing package of lesser prospects.
A case could’ve been made that trading Doval made sense even if the Giants were in a buying posture. With his arm talent and two additional years of club control, he was one of the few players on the roster who figured to command a meaningful return that could include major leaguers coming the other way. But the Giants seemingly got less for Doval than they did for two months of Rogers.
While the Giants were clear sellers, they didn’t go full Minnesota and dismantle their roster. Among their impending free agents, they kept Wilmer Flores and Justin Verlander and only moved outfielder Mike Yastrzemski to the Kansas City Royals.
The writing was already on the wall that Yaz’s time with the Giants was coming to an end. Then the Giants got a player who looks like a 24-year-old version of him, acquiring Drew Gilbert — a lefty-hitting platoon candidate who could play anywhere in the outfield — from the Mets in the Rogers trade.
(Photo of Rafael Devers: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)
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