It’s exactly one year to the day since the Giants stunningly acquired Rafael Devers from the Red Sox. It’s a testament to how poorly this season has gone that ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that they’re already open to trade conversations involving Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported this afternoon that San Francisco’s front office has begun to explore the possibility of a deadline sale. Rosenthal wrote that the Giants have no interest in moving ace Logan Webb but could explore making Chapman available. Impending free agents Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray are obvious trade candidates as well.
As MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored today, there should be no shortage of interest in Arraez. He’s one of the top impending free agents and playing on an affordable $12MM salary, around $3.5MM of which will be owed after the deadline. Ray’s $25MM salary (roughly $7.25MM owed after August 3) is more onerous and would likely require San Francisco to eat some money.
Neither of those compare to the challenge of moving any of Devers, Adames or Chapman. They’re not coincidentally the team’s three highest-paid players long term. Chapman is playing on a $25MM salary and owed $100MM between 2027-30. Adames has a modest $10MM salary this year but will make $28MM annually for five seasons after this one ($140MM total). Devers is making $27.5MM this season and signed for another $211MM over seven years beyond this one. That includes $7.5MM in annual deferrals but represents a huge commitment, larger than any other in team history.
That all makes it unsurprising that the Giants would be open to offers on those players. Adames and Chapman are already in their 30s. Devers turns 30 in October. All three contracts are above market, so the Giants would need to pay them down and/or take back salary offsets to make trades realistic.
Chapman is having the best season of the three. He started slowly from a power perspective but has caught fire with six home runs this month. He’s up to a .261/.348/.414 line on the season and is still a quality defensive third baseman, albeit below his Platinum Glove level peak. A $25MM salary isn’t a bargain but isn’t egregious for this year’s production. The issue is the matching commitments for his ages 34-37 campaigns, an age at which there hasn’t been a four-year free agent commitment for a position player since 2020.
Adames is 30 years old and hitting .229/.274/.418 through 299 plate appearances. He also has some of the worst defensive grades of any shortstop in MLB. Only Zach Neto has committed more errors than Adames’ 12. His first season in San Francisco essentially met expectations — he became the franchise’s first 30-homer hitter since Barry Bonds 21 years earlier — but it’s difficult to imagine them getting any trade interest given this year’s performance and the contract.
Devers has a subpar .235/.293/.413 batting line over 307 plate appearances. He’s striking out at a career-worst 30.3% rate while walking just 7.5% of the time. Devers still hits the ball hard but has seen his once elite hard contact rate and exit velocities dip to merely very good. He picked things up in May after a rough start, but he’s again mired in a .154/.267/.327 slump since the beginning of June. Devers was hampered by a disc injury in his back last summer and some minor hamstring discomfort this spring.
The Giants have limited long-term roster flexibility with Devers and Bryce Eldridge locked into the first base and designated hitter spots. The 21-year-old Eldridge has been a rare bright spot, making more contact than expected and immediately stepping up as one of the team’s top hitters.
Their lack of positional flexibility has already forced them to use Casey Schmitt, one of their better defensive infielders, out of position in left field. Schmitt is a good enough athlete that it’s not unreasonable for him to be a capable outfielder in time, but his early defensive grades on the grass have been rough. He could eventually move back to second base, assuming Arraez is traded at the deadline. Schmitt came up in offseason trade rumors himself, but that wouldn’t help them get younger or take any long-term money off the books.
Devers, Adames, Chapman and Webb are four of the team’s five players signed for more than $20MM next season. Webb is back to pitching at a top-of-the-rotation level and could net a huge prospect return if the front office reversed course and put him on the market.
Right fielder Jung Hoo Lee is their other particularly highly-priced player, signed for $63MM through 2029. Lee can opt out after the ’27 season and is having an excellent year, hitting .331/.364/.445 on the heels of a recent 18-game hitting streak. The Giants should probably hear teams out on Lee given the likelihood of him opting out in less than two years, though there’s no indication that’s currently on the table.
The outfield has been an issue even with Lee performing, so they might not to want to deal that big a hit to their 2027 roster, but they don’t seem particularly well positioned for an immediate rebound. Only the Rockies and Royals have a worse record than San Francisco’s 29-43 mark.
