Giants Could Help Yankees With Ideal 3B Trade Upgrade (And Make the Red Sox Look Foolish)

There's an opportunity for the New York Yankees to make a blockbuster deal.

Trading with the Giants would not only benefit the Yankees, but it'd also hurt one of their biggest AL East rivals. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Hal Steinbrenner isn't his dad, and it's hard to make these over-the-top blockbuster deals without feeling that a particular take will carry a cost-effective cloud of doubt. Even still, there's the potential for a dream trade for the Yankees with the Giants holding a fire sale in the form of Rafael Devers, the former Red Sox slugger.

According to the New York Post's Jon Heyman on Monday, all but two players are on the table for the struggling Giants.

"The Giants are sending the message nearly everyone is available but outfielder Jung Hoo Lee and ace Logan Webb," Heyman reports. "But in their condition, perhaps they could be talked into it."

With no mention of Devers, it seems he could conceivably be on the table. The big issue, of course, is the steep price tag he comes with. Devers is owed $28.5 million annually through 2033, per Spotrac, which takes him to his age-36 season.

The Yankees could be tempted to trade for Rafael Devers, assuming that the former Red Sox slugger remains available. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It's a lot of money, but the Yankees are one of the few teams that can foot the bill.

If Steinbrenner were committed to making another Giancarlo-Stanton-type deal where a team is looking to offload a contract so the Yankees can land a star, there's an opportunity for them to improve a position of weakness in an impactful way.

Fixing Yankees' 3B problem with Devers

Since the trade that sent Gio Urshela to the Twins, the Yankees have been middle of the road at third base. Their 93 wRC+ since 2022 is 16th in baseball. Their .683 OPS is 19th.

Devers would instantly give them a viable option at the position for the next few years since he is a career .274/.347/.504 hitter with a 126 wRC+. While this season is a bit of a down year for him, since he's hitting .249/.319/479, with a 118 WRC+, the park he plays in may be a factor.

Playing in San Francisco, he is pulling fly balls at a 15.6% clip, and that could be by design. With the Yankees, if he starts pulling fly balls a little more with the short porch in right field, there's a real opportunity to wreak havoc.

Devers already does his most damage on fly balls. On balls he hits in the air, he is hitting .407 with a .641 wOBA and an average exit velocity of 94.9 mph.

Earlier in the month, Devers absolutely crushed a ball in Colorado (h/t RotoLegends), sending a ball to the upper deck in right.

Rafael Devers Upper Deck Blast

⚾ 110.3 MPH exit velocity
⚾ 463 FT distance

Devers launched an absolute moonshot into the third deck for his second home run of the day. pic.twitter.com/tJA4vvwZta

— RotoLegends (@RotoLegends) July 6, 2026

There have been some character concerns, ranging from being outspoken about how he was used defensively in Boston and, recently, shooing away a pinch runner in the ninth inning, but he could see some of the best years of his career at Yankee Stadium, where he's batted .266 with a .855 OPS and 18 home runs in 64 all-time outings.

A more motivated Devers

Plus, with how things ended with Devers and Boston, he would be extremely motivated to stick it to his old ball club. How could he not? He had an unceremonious send-off, being traded away on a random Sunday afternoon in June after hitting a homer off of Max Fried.

Here's a player that came up through the Red Sox farm system, helped deliver a World Series in 2018, and was paid handsomely by them. Devers has always been the type of player to rise to the occasion, and his eight home runs in 89 postseason at-bats are one indication of that. He would have an entire career to make them pay for that trade and do it with their storied rival in the Bronx.

Just imagine the rage that Red Sox fans would feel by seeing Devers hoist the Commissioner's Trophy in pinstripes this fall.

The Yankees have a history of making big trades like this during general manager Brian Cashman's tenure, though they haven't done so as frequently. Before the 2004 season, they acquired Alex Rodríguez after the trade between the Red Sox and the Rangers fell through.

Then, more than a decade later, in 2018, the Yankees landed Stanton from the Marlins. Devers can be the next big bat, and his power would fit in perfectly between Aaron Judge and Ben Rice. Few teams would have a better top three in baseball than that, highlighting why a call to the Giants must be made immediately.