Giants' big swing for Rafael Devers is the exact move the Cardinals should have done

While I think many baseball fans are wrong to believe the Rafael Devers trade was a terrible move for the Boston Red Sox, I do love the deal for the San Francisco Giants, and it is the exact kind of swing the St. Louis Cardinals should have been looking to make.

A few weeks ago, I talked about how the Cardinals needed to take a page out of the Chicago Cubs' playbook from last offseason and add a middle-of-the-order bat to their lineup. I used Rafael Devers as my example of what kind of player they could pursue, and honestly, he seemed like such a great fit in my eyes.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they didn't make that kind of move, and whether or not they would actually ever consider it, the Giants' new president of baseball operations, Buster Posey, beat them to the punch.

Trading for Rafael Devers would have been an excellent move for the St. Louis Cardinals.

While the Cardinals have the ability to contend in 2025, their main priority should remain setting themselves up for 2026 and beyond, and acquiring someone like Devers could have done just that.

The Cardinals lack that top 15 or so bat in all of baseball that can truly transform an offense. Add Devers to a lineup that features Willson Contreras, Ivan Herrera, Brendan Donovan, and others, and this team is immediately cooking with gas offensively and ready to be one of the best units in all of baseball.

Was the fit complicated? For sure. If they still had Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals would have had to play Herrera at catcher most days, but something tells me they could have figured out a way to send Arenado to Boston alongside other pieces to appease the Red Sox' wishes.

Even if the Cardinals had to give up some pitching like the Giants did, ultimately, it would have been worth it. The Cardinals do not have a bat like Devers in their organization right now, and it's hard to see them signing one of his caliber in free agency either. Trades or player development are their paths to that kind of player, and Chaim Bloom's relationship with Devers made his fit feel like a unique one for St. Louis.

It is no secret that the reason this trade even went down in the first place was the deterioration of Devers' relationship with the front office. Bloom was the one who handed Devers his massive extension, and Bloom made him assurances that the Red Sox' new front office was not going to uphold, like playing third base.

In the immediate aftermath of the shocking Devers trade, Chris Cotillo, who covers the Red Sox for MassLive.com, has provided a lot of really interesting tidbits about how bad the situation had become. While Devers did not request a trade out of Boston, it felt like a divorce between the two sides was coming at some point, and it seems like Devers' main frustration was with the current voices in charge of the organization after they let go of Bloom.

So a deal was made with the Giants, but here's what I find to be extremely frustrating when it relates to the Cardinals. Multiple teams — the Braves, Padres, and Blue Jays — had inquired about Devers' availability alongside the Giants, but the Cardinals were not one of them. That is a huge problem in my eyes.

It doesn't take connecting many dots to understand why St. Louis was a great fit for Devers...

1. The Cardinals desperately need a middle-of-the-order bat, and Devers would have been the perfect player to fill that hole for them. Sure, there are a lot of bats right now that profile as corner infielders or DH, but Devers is at a different level.
2. According to John Mozeliak, they had a deal in place with the Red Sox to send Arenado to Boston prior to them signing Alex Bregman. If they were ready to move Devers, it's really not crazy to think a deal could have been formed around sending Arenado and other pieces to Boston in exchange for Devers. It would have been complicated, but something worth exploring.
3. And I'll say it one more time, we cannot ignore how much of a leg up the Cardinals may have had with Devers since Bloom is set to take over after the 2025 season. Sure, figuring out where he would play long term may be difficult, but it seems like Devers had no issues with Bloom before, so reuniting him with an executive he already had a good relationship with seems like a no-brainer from Devers' side.

Here's the problem. Not only do we have no idea if the Cardinals had any interest in that kind of move (which if they didn't, that is a major issue), but even if they did have interest in Devers, they clearly did not take initiative in trying to make that deal potentially happen, and we have evidence of the Cardinals almost botching getting guys they've wanted before purely because they did not reach out quick enough.

At Winter Warm-Up last year, Sonny Gray spoke about how he had almost signed with a different organization even though St. Louis was at the top of his list. The problem wasn't how negotiations were going with the Cardinals; the problem was that the Cardinals had not reached out to Gray and his camp until late in the process. That's insane! How can someone be your top target, and instead of making your interest known to them early on, you wait months to contact them, instead prioritizing going after Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn? It honestly still blows my mind that they almost missed out on Gray because they took way too long to call.

Did Mozeliak know this kind of deal for Devers was on the table? Were the DeWitts aware of it? I'm guessing not, and that's a major problem when you're running a Major League Baseball organization. I like to think I have some good ideas sometimes when it comes to this team, but there is no good reason why I should be suggesting they look into something like this, and the Cardinals apparently never did their own due diligence. It's insanity, especially considering we already know the Arenado conversations happened and a deal was put in place.

Sure, it would have been complicated, but man, that's not a good excuse. When it comes to a talent like Devers, one you probably don't have internally and probably won't be signing in free agency anytime soon, you have to be proactive in making sure you are in the mix if he ever became available. This is not the Luka Doncic trade; that truly came out of nowhere. Although no one knew a deal was about to happen for Devers, we all saw the relationship was in a very bad place, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that he may be available.

Well, I guess unless you're the Cardinals, who never even called. I don't know how you sell your fanbase on the future when this is the way you conduct your business, but alas, here we are.