You go to bed on a Sunday night, satisfied that your favourite team has swept its fiercest rival and, in the process, climbed back above .500 for the first time in weeks.
However, you then get up on Sunday morning to find that the same team has traded away its best hitter for a couple of sketchy pitchers, a hitting prospect and a minor league reliever.
What on earth are the Red Sox doing?
Let’s recap. Devers ended last season on the IL but was expected to be the Red Sox’ primary third baseman this season and for many more due to the $30m a season, 11-year contract they handed to him a couple of years ago.
Then, during the winter, noises from within the club indicated a desire to go and get Alex Bregman in free agency to plug the massive holes they had for a right-handed hitter and a competent infielder, which they did. This was originally spun as the Red Sox acquiring him to play second base, but the rapid emergence of Kristian Campbell and no obvious place to put him other than at second meant that in a straight choice between Devers and Bregman at third, it was a no-brainer to choose the Gold Glover over the at-best-average fielder.
Therefore, the Red Sox asked Raffy to go to DH. He aired his annoyance publicly during Spring Training, but the fact he was still recovering from 2024’s injury, and so wasn’t fielding any position at that time, made it seem like he’d reluctantly accepted that decision.
And after a terrible first week or two, Devers consistently smacked the ball hard and got on-base at as high a rate as at any point in his career. But the sense that the Red Sox had badly mishandled the communication with Raffy over the change in position was tangible.
Then first baseman Triston Casas, who had been scuffling offensively, blew out his knee, ruling him out for the season. The most obvious solution? Move infielder Rafael Devers to first base, free up the DH spot for Masataka Yoshida and/or to provide rest/at-bats for other members of the team. But no, Devers (again publicly) said he did not want to do that, saying that the team had told him to put his glove away. This latest disagreement resulted in chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and principal owner John Henry flying to Kansas City to have a sit-down with Devers and clear the air.
An uneasy truce was seemingly reached and Devers continued to mash the ball, while Abraham Toro and Romy Gonzales between them have been adequate replacements at first base.
However…
On Sunday night, out of the blue, came the announcement that Devers had been traded to the Giants for Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison and two other players, with San Francisco taking on all of the money Devers is owed on his contract.
As always seems to be the case when the Red Sox have an unhappy separation from a player, murmurs were immediately reported from the Red Sox side that they felt Raffy had not lived up to his stature as the face of the franchise by refusing to be flexible at a time when the team needed him to be.
This wasn’t the explicit line Breslow took in his Zoom press conference, but it was the subtext and, by making it so, he’s owning up to his own failure. The idea that the Red Sox pursued a new third baseman and did not talk to their very-highly-paid-for-the-next-ten-years-incumbent about the possibility that he would need to be flexible about DH-ing or taking reps at first base should be unbelievable, but the lack of feel that Breslow seems to have for the Boston fanbase and for how to handle players – which was one of the notable things from an otherwise meh documentary series – sadly means it’s not.
My view
In true BBC fashion, I will both-sides this though by saying that if Devers was the team leader he was paid to be, it does seem odd that he didn’t volunteer to stand in at first even on a temporary basis.
But that’s part of the problem – I’ve always thought that Devers got the contract he did, and was put front and centre as the face of the franchise, because the Red Sox massively messed it up when they traded Mookie Betts to the LA Dodgers – Betts is a superior player, and far better-suited to the leadership role than Devers.
So, as well as missing out on Betts for the past four years, and as well as having to put up with Alex Verdugo and zero contribution from the other parts of that trade, the Red Sox found themselves holding a very large contract for a permanent DH who they annoyed so much that they felt it better to dump his salary in return for nobody special, just so they didn’t have to deal with the consequences of their multiple failures.
I have no doubt that Devers will continue to hit like the All-Star he is. And I fully expect that he will troll the Red Sox by happily playing first base against them when they play in San Francisco a few days from now.
What the Red Sox do now will be of more interest to the fans. Will they use the $250m they’ve freed up to tie down the rest of the big three to long-term deals? Will they use it to extend Alex Bregman? Will they swallow someone else’s big contract to obtain a hitter to replace Devers? Or will they, as they did at the time of the Betts trade, pretend they’re not one of the richest and most valuable teams in the league and try and persuade the fans into believing that getting value for money is better than winning.
One thing’s for sure, I don’t think anyone believes that the Red Sox are a better team after this trade than they were before.
The Giants, on the other hand, definitely are.
Craig Richmond is a Boston Red Sox fan, and can be found on Twitter @craigare.
Featured image – Jeff Chiu/AP
