Detroit Tigers Should Investigate Blockbuster Trade for World Series Champion
The Detroit Tigers have an issue on their hands with less than two weeks away from the season.
At third base, the Tigers are seemingly set to role with some sort of combination of Jace Jung — who is hitting dreadfully this spring — along with the injured Matt Vierling and potentially even disappointing shortstop Javier Baez at the position.
Though they gave it an admirable pursuit, the team fell short of landing former Houston Astros star third baseman Alex Bregman, with the veteran heading to the Boston Red Sox instead on a lucrative shorter term deal. While it stung tremendously at the time, perhaps Detroit could still find a way to benefit indirectly from Bregman going elsewhere.
Initially, the plan for the Red Sox seemed to be Bregman moving over to second base while their current franchise third baseman — three-time All-Star Rafael Devers — stayed at the hot corner even though he is a bit of a liability on defense.
Throughout his career, Devers' lackluster defense has been forgiven because he's one of the best hitters in baseball. But bringing in a Gold Glove third baseman only to leave Devers there never made much sense.
When the plans began to shift towards Devers moving to designated hitter, he defiantly told Boston media third base was his position and he would not move. While his tone has since mellowed, over the weekend it was reported by Sean McAdam of MassLive that the slugger throughout the drama had weighed the possibility of requesting for a trade.
Though there are not indications as of now he's being shopped by the Red Sox, there likely wouldn't be so that they could maintain their leverage if they were going to ship Devers out of town.
Notably, Devers does not have a no-trade clause, meaning that if the relationship between the team and him have soured, they could simply send him to the highest bidder with no regard for the 28-year-old's wishes.
When it comes to the highest bidder, nobody could offer more in terms of a potential prospect package than the Tigers. For Detroit, acquiring Devers would give them a superstar under contract for nearly the next decade who is just entering his prime all while solving an issue which does not appear to have an in-house solution right now.
Boston actually sending away a superstar the likes of Devers would be a massive shock, though if they are shopping him, the Tigers should be at the forefront of negotiations.
However unlikely it may be, the potential payoff for Detroit is great enough that it's at least worth investigating the slim possibility.
