Rafael Devers is still owed $226 million as his brutal start with the Giants raises early questions about one of baseballâs biggest contracts. When the Boston Red Sox signed Devers to a 10-year, $313.5 million extension before the 2023 season, the deal ranked as the 12th-most lucrative in baseball history. When Boston stunned the baseball world last June by trading Devers to the San Francisco Giants, that financial obligation traveled with him. Eight years and about $226 million remain on that contract. Through 25 games in 2026, the Giants are not getting what they paid for.
Devers, heading into Friday’s action, is batting .230 with two home runs, three doubles, nine RBIs and 33 strikeouts in 100 at-bats. His OPS sits well below his career mark of .849. On both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference, he has posted a -0.5 to -0.7 Wins Above Replacement, tied for the second-worst mark in the sport, according to SFGate‘s Alex Simon. If the season ended today, Devers would set career-worst numbers in virtually every rate category: batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, strikeout rate, walk rate and home run rate.
Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey is not panicking. He said this week that Devers’ decade-long track record makes the early struggles easy to contextualize.
“I mean, this guy’s been doing it what, eight or nine years now? He’s been one of the best hitters in the game. So he’ll get there,” Posey said, as quoted by MassLive‘s Lauren Campbell. “All those years, it’s not like we’re dealing with a small sample size. So yeah, I do feel good about it.”
But Devers’ slow start raises concerning questions not only for the 11-14 Giants and their 2026 season, but for the financial future of the franchise.
Rafael Devers’ Slump Raises Alarming Questions for Giants
Posey offered a more granular diagnosis in the same interview.
“I think he’s just a little in between right now,” the Giants PBO said. “Maybe a tick late on some heaters, and then a little bit out in front on off-speed. But there’s such a track record that you’re just waiting each day to be like, ‘Ooh, there it is.’”
The timing problems extend to the field. Devers battled a left hamstring issue to open the season and has committed defensive miscues since returning to first base, a position he never played professionally before arriving in San Francisco. During a recent series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he arrived late to the middle of the infield trying to cut off a throw home, allowing a run to score and a batter to advance an extra base, as Simon recounted in the SFGate report.
Making his struggles even more conspicuous, Devers has not spoken to reporters since April 8, the day he homered against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Athletic‘s Andrew Baggarly reported that Devers has consistently avoided beat writers requesting interviews for two straight weeks. During one batting practice session, Baggarly wrote, Devers sprinted past him down the dugout stairs, said he needed to hit in the indoor cage, then emerged less than two minutes later and vanished back to the clubhouse.
It is not the first time Devers has gone silent during a difficult stretch. In Boston last season, he reportedly refused to speak with the Red Sox television crew after wins, a pattern that soured his relationship with the organization well before the Father’s Day trade that sent him to San Francisco.
Giants Owe Rafael Devers $226 Million Through Age 36
His bloated contract makes the Devers situation impossible to ignore. San Francisco inherited about $226 million remaining on Devers’ deal through 2033, plus approximately $70 million more in deferred salary. The Giants surrendered prospects James Tibbs III and Kyle Harrison, both of whom Boston has since traded, to acquire him, per Campbell’s MassLive report. At $31.3 million annually through his age-36 season, Devers ranks 21st in average annual value across all of baseball, according to FanSided‘s Chris Landers.
The underlying metrics offer little comfort. Devers’ zone contact rate â how often he makes contact on pitches in the strike zone â has fallen to 73.9 percent, below the league average of roughly 82 percent. His strikeout rate has climbed from 18.6 percent in 2022 to 28 percent in 2026. Those numbers reflect a multi-year trend, not an April anomaly, per Landers’ analysis. And with minimal defensive value at first base, his bat is the sole justification for the contract.
Posey, for his part, remains committed to the long view.
“We’re still a work in progress,” Posey said earlier this month, as quoted by The San Francisco Standard. The organization is now tied to $493.5 million in long-term obligations across Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman through 2033. All three have struggled to open 2026. Whether Devers is the slow-starter who heats up in May, as he did last season after a rough April, or the beginning of a very expensive eight-year problem is the question that will define the Buster Posey era.
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