Blue Jays Rumors: Toronto more involved in Rafael Devers trade talks than you thought

Once again, a swing and a miss from the Toronto Blue Jays front office. The Rafael Devers trade has swept the baseball world by storm after it was announced on Sunday and information continues to fall out reactions and rumors continue to fly in the wake of the deal.

Boston sent Devers to the Giants for a package of four players – none of whom bring immediate help to a franchise that was thought of as being a playoff contender this season. Instead, they ship out a superstar and potentially future Hall of Fame player for the second time in five seasons, as Devers follows Mookie Betts to the NL West.

One of the rumours that has been made public is being reported on MassLive where the Blue Jays are one of the teams who are said to have called the Red Sox to inquire about Devers’ availability. It isn’t known how far those talks got or if any players were named by the Blue Jays in a package that could land them Devers, but it’s another superstar on the move that the Blue Jays could have landed.

It builds upon the running theme over the last few seasons where the Blue Jays have made some inspiring but failed attempts to land a premier player from another market. Most of those failures have come in free agency, with the Blue Jays not able to bring in players like Shoei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso or Alex Bregman. It’s also been a few years since they made a blockbuster type deal via trade. One could argue the last of those kinds that truly helped the Blue Jays was when they acquired José Berrios at the 2021 trade deadline or perhaps the Matt Chapman trade that came the following spring.

Other trades have taken place before and after those deals, but the Blue Jays haven’t  brought in a player of the caliber of someone like Devers’ in a long time. With a slash line of .272/.401/.504, a 152 OPS+ with 15 home runs Devers has been worth 2.3 bWAR – all as a designated hitter. Adding him to Toronto’s lineup would have given them a giant boost as he would immediately become their best offensive weapon. He leads all Blue Jays in several categories including OBP, OPS+, home runs and slugging. As well his 56 walks equals the same output from Alejandro Kirk, Bo Bichette, Ernie Clement and Addison Barger combined.

Devers is the type of player that can take your team from a good team to a great team and the Giants will be reaping all kinds of rewards from being the aggressors here, while the Blue Jays watch another superstar slip right through their fingers.

It’s very likely that the Red Sox would not have wanted to trade Devers to a division rival and that is completely understandable, but it’s also the job of a GM to convince other GM’s that their trade package is too good to pass up, something Ross Atkins was not able to do in this situation.