Craig Breslow Vehemently Denies Popular Rafael Devers Trade Theory

Fenway Sports Group has been involved in a couple of massive deals over the last couple of weeks.

Liverpool F.C. made a major splash in the soccer world when agreeing to a record-breaking £116 million ($157 million) transfer to acquire Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen on June 13. The Boston Red Sox, just two days later, made a foundation-shaking move of their own by sending Rafael Devers and the $271.2 million remaining on his contract to the San Francisco Giants.

Were these two deals connected in any way?

“That’s not just a stretch, it’s just completely untrue,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said in an appearance on WEEI’s Greg Hill Show on Tuesday. “In none of the conversations that I have with John (Henry), with ownership, about our resources, is the financial implications or situations of any of the other teams a topic.

“The Red Sox are run independently of any of those other organizations. The timing here was just a matter of lining up on getting the right players back and finding the right situation that represented a trade that we needed to make.”

Breslow did earlier admit that the timing of the Devers deal was… less than ideal.

The Red Sox will now move forward without their best bat, though it has been reported they’ll be buyers ahead of the trade deadline so long as the current roster keeps stacking up wins. It’ll be difficult under current circumstances, but if things follow their current path, the blockbuster deals might not be over.