Rafael Devers Is Making History While Proving the Haters Wrong
Despite the lack of team success, the lefty masher has put together one of San Francisco's best offensive seasons ever in 2026.
The San Francisco Giants shocked the world when they traded for Rafael Devers in June of last year. Quite frankly, nobody knew he was available in trade talks and Buster Posey struck while the iron was hot.
His club was healthily outperforming expectations to open his first season at the helm of the Giants organization and he put all his chips forward trying to make a legitimate World Series contender.
It made perfect sense — bringing in one of the most consistent left-handed mashers in the sport to pair with Posey’s first two long-term signs in Willy Adames and Matt Chapman.
Unfortunately, things did not go to plan. The Giants played horrific baseball down the stretch and ended up missing the playoffs despite waking up on June 14 tied for the division lead.
Even with the collapse, however, San Francisco had fairly strong expectations coming into 2026. Devers was going into his first full season in the Bay Area and the club was expected to be slightly over .500 — fighting for a Wild Card spot.
Let’s see where things went from there.
An Abysmal April
Popular belief would suggest that across his career, Rafael Devers was one of the worst hitters in baseball in the early parts of the season and an infamous slow starter. However, from 2019 to 2025, he roughly averaged a 124 wRC+ in March and April.
This year was a completely different story. In March and April of 2026, he posted the fourth worst season of his career by wRC+ (48) as well as the fourth worst by OPS (.537). He launched just two home runs through his first 129 plate appearances while striking out a discouraging 31% of the time.
It didn’t help that the entire team was playing an atrocious brand of baseball. San Francisco finished April with a record of 13-18 and capped off the month by losing two games to the Phillies via walk-off on the same day in a doubleheader.
The season had felt lost just a month in and with their best hitter falling flat on his face, there was little hope. It had gotten so bad that fans were calling for Devers to be traded nearly a year after he was supposed to be the savior of their organization.
Rafi Runs it Back
Now, we can’t say that May 1st was the day that San Francisco turned their season around. However, we can confidently proclaim that the calendar flipping was exactly what Rafael Devers needed.
Radio personalities around the Bay Area joked that the 29-year-old slugger was using the first month of the season as his spring training due to an injury sustained in San Francisco’s actual spring training. However, looking back, that may have really been the case.
Since the start of May, Devers has comfortably been a top three hitter in Major League Baseball. In his 491 plate appearances during that span, Devers has slugged .588 with a 158 wRC+, 33 home runs, 81 runs batted in, and an fWAR of 4.1 — all of which rank within the top five of the entire sport.
After finishing the month of April with a wRC+ of 48, Devers’ current 135 wRC+ is the fourth best mark of his 10-season career.
He’s not just hitting for power, either. Since the conclusion of April, his strikeout rate has fallen from 31% to 24% while his average has gone from .207 to .275.
Devers has managed to put together one of the best midseason turnarounds we’ve seen in recent memory. Part of that is thanks to how good he has been in recent weeks, specifically. Since the start of September, Devers has already lunched five home runs, 4 doubles, and driven in 13 runs, good for a 1.699 OPS.
He was deservedly named National League Player of the Week after one of the best weeks in the history of the San Francisco Giants:
The Future of the Orange and Black
When the trade was made, the idea of the Giants getting their best slugger since Barry Bonds was thrown around. Of course, Posey came in between the two, but he didn’t do the damage that Devers has the ability to do, and we’re seeing it first hand.
Even when San Francisco was winning those three championships in five year, they didn’t have a hitter with the ceiling of Devers. Despite the slow start, he’s officially put together one of the better seasons from a pure offensive production standpoint in San Francisco’s long history.
Not to mention, Devers has helped form one of the more entertaining offensive duos in baseball over recent months with 21-year-old rookie Bryce Eldridge. Those two alone should have San Francisco fans excited for what’s to come despite the team’s uninspiring record.
While we may look back at the 2026 San Francisco Giants as one of the organization’s most forgotten teams, we won’t forget about the historic run Rafael Devers went on in his first full season dawning the orange and black.
Become a Member of Just Baseball
Subscribe and upgrade to go ad-free!
* Save 25% by subscribing annually.
Written by
Michael Monreal got his start in baseball media when he started his own website covering the San Francisco Giants after playing two years of college baseball.…