The Red Sox Are Pulling the Wrong Levers With Rafael Devers

Since 2019, Rafael Devers has put up 25.2 WAR for the Red Sox. Over that span, only one other player has even reached 10.0; it was Xander Bogaerts, who is no longer with the team. With the exception of the shortened 2020 season, Devers has never finished worse than second on the team in WAR. That includes last season, when he recorded 4.1 WAR despite playing through injuries to both shoulders. He was arguably the worst defensive third baseman in baseball, but he hit so well that he was inarguably the best player on the team, the face of the franchise, and one of the most productive third basemen in the game.

The Red Sox traded away Mookie Betts. They let Bogaerts walk. They kept Devers. When erstwhile chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom signed Devers to a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension in January 2023, Michael Baumann’s headline read, “The Red Sox Have Finally Extended Rafael Devers.” He’s the longest-tenured member of the team, and only Kristian Campbell, whose extension contains team options for 2033 and 2034, is under contract further into the future. The Red made Devers the cornerstone, but in something straight out of a Suzy Eddie Izzard bit, they have spent the past couple months trying to dig him up and plop him down in different spots. The moves make baseball sense. That’s not the problem. The problem is communication. The team seems to be doing its level best to alienate its biggest star, repeatedly saying one thing in public, and then another to Devers in private.

It started during the offseason, when the Red Sox began pursuing Alex Bregman. Throughout free agency, Bregman had been vocal about his openness to switching his position from third base to second, and the Red Sox were just as vocal that they’d prefer him at second. When asked during the Winter Meetings about rumors that Devers might be moved off third, manager Alex Cora said, “I don’t know where that comes from. I haven’t talked to Raffy about that. I have never talked to his agent about that. People talk about his defense. Actually, I thought last year, he did an outstanding job, especially to his left…. And I guarantee you we haven’t had those conversations.” Clearly, the last sentence was true, but there’s no universe in which Cora was unaware of how much Devers’ defense hurt the team last season. Maybe his willingness to say something so obviously untrue should have been a sign.

Cora doubled down on those comments just a few weeks later. “Rafael Devers is our third baseman,” he told NESN. “I always envisioned Alex as a Gold Glover second baseman.” Even when Bregman signed, the Red Sox indicated that he would play second base, as a source told ESPN’s Jeff Passan on the day the news of the deal broke. Then all hell broke loose. Two days after Bregman agreed to his three-year, $120 million contract, with opt outs after either of the first two seasons, Cora and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow did exactly what they’d been saying for months that they wouldn’t do. They asked Devers to move to designated hitter. Devers said no.

Three days later, he candidly told reporters what happened. “Third base is my position,” he said. “It’s what I’ve played. I don’t know what their plans are. I know we have a conversation and I made it clear what my desires were.” He also revealed that he was assured that he’d play third base when he signed his contract extension all of two years earlier. “That was definitely what was discussed when I signed, that I would be playing this position for a long time,” he said through team interpreter Daveson Perez. “I believe people’s word and I take it to heart, so it was very surprising that they would suggest that. Since the beginning, I have known that this is a business, and I’ve known that each side is going to do what’s comfortable to them. I don’t think that this is the right way to do business.”

The situation was ugly. Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe reported these comments in a February 17 story that made fun of Devers’ weight multiple times and was packed with implied criticism for infractions such as using a translator, flying home to the Dominican Republic for his daughter’s birthday the previous week — before Boston’s first full-squad workout — and doing his rehab work indoors rather than in view of reporters. “Rafael Devers is in the ‘no’ business,” wrote Steve Buckley of The Athletic, in an article titled “Rafael Devers has earned right to pout, but it’s good business to move him to DH.”

When asked about the promises Devers received, Cora said, “Different people here, right? There’s a different leader here. Chaim is in St. Louis right now.” One wonders whether Cora would have felt the same way were he the one being effectively demoted. As Buckley wrote, “A lot of people, not just Bloom, suggested Devers would be a long-term fixture at third base.” Cora was Boston’s manager at the time. He was one of those people. In fact, he made that same argument himself while fending off the position-switching rumors during the Winter Meetings. He told reporters, “When you sign a contract like that, he signed as a third baseman and he wants to be a third baseman, right?” The team made Devers a promise and the team broke it.

As news of Devers’ comments swirled, Breslow told reporters, “These things tend to have a way of working themselves out.” He was right. Devers agreed to the move within a few days and has continued to be one of the best hitters in baseball. The team was certainly within its rights to ask Devers to move, even to demand it, but it’s not particularly difficult to think of better ways to handle the situation. According to Cora, Devers urged ownership to go out and sign reinforcements just last summer. He clearly cares about building a winning roster. The powers that be didn’t have to shout from the rooftops that his job was safe when they didn’t mean it. They could have kept him apprised or made him feel included in the decision-making process. They could have broached the possibility of a move earlier. Devers has been with the organization since 2013. Surely, someone knows him well enough to plan out a course of action that would have been less hurtful or less likely to result in public acrimony.

That acrimony set the scene for what’s going on now. The day after Triston Casas injured his left knee, Cora was asked whether the Red Sox would consider moving Devers to play first base. “From my end right now, no,” he said. To every follow-up question, he replied, “No.” He said, “We’re staying the course.” He said, “We made a decision. We talked to him. He’s a DH.” The next day, when Casas underwent surgery to repair his ruptured left patellar tendon, Boston announced that he would be out for the season. “I like Raffy as DH,” Cora said. “In my opinion, to throw something at him right now, it [would] be very unfair.” Would you like to guess what happened next?

When Breslow approached Devers about taking over at first base, Devers once again felt like the chief baseball officer had gone back on his word and once again said no. “I know I’m a ballplayer,” Devers said via translator, “but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there. In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH. So right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”

Devers was told that he was done playing the field, period. He was told to put away his glove! Cora told reporters during spring training that Devers wouldn’t play third even when Bregman needed a day off. Less than two months later, after doing as he was told and working with the coaching staff to figure out an entirely new routine as a DH, he’s being asked to take over a position he has never played professionally at any level. Christopher Smith of MassLive reported that when asked whether the request upset him, Devers said, “Yeah, I don’t think they stay true to their word. They told me I was going to be playing this position, DH. And now they are going back on that. So yeah, I don’t think they stay true to their word.”

Once again, Devers just plain sounded hurt, specifically by Breslow. “It was the GM that I spoke with,” he said. “I’m not sure what [issue] he has with me. He played ball and I would like to think he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy. They put me in this situation, and they told me that they didn’t want to allow me to play any other position. And now, I think they should do their jobs essentially, and hit the market and look for another player [for first base]. I’m not sure why they want me to be in-between the way they have been.” When asked if he would reconsider playing first base, he said, “I don’t think so. They told me I’m a little hard-headed. They already asked me to change once and this time I don’t think I can be as flexible.”

The team called in the big guns over the weekend. Owner John Henry flew to Kansas City along with CEO Sam Kennedy and Breslow. Breslow told reporters that Henry spoke to Devers with Cora in the room. Said Breslow, “We felt like it was important, based on the situation that unfolded yesterday, to come out here and have an honest conversation about what we value as an organization and what we believe is important to the Boston Red Sox and that is being great teammates for each other. And so we think we had a productive conversation. John seems to have had a productive conversation. And that’s where things stand right now.” Asked what he meant by “being a great teammate,” Breslow replied, “I think it’s No. 1, being honest and open with communication. I think it is recognizing when there’s an opportunity to step up, when there’s a need for the group to be in front of any individual achievement or accomplishment. And I think it’s important that that gets reinforced given what we’re hoping to accomplish.”

When asked whether he regretted the way he handled the situation back in February, Breslow gave a circuitous non-answer. “Obviously, it’s unfortunate that we’re in the situation that we are right now,” he said. “But as you approach every decision, you try to provide as much clear communication as possible. It’s my job to always put the priorities of the organization first. But I should also be evaluating every interaction I have with players and I’ll continue to do that.”

The safe assumption is that Devers will be playing first base soon enough. That’s how it went back in February. He was hurt, he refused, he made his displeasure known publicly, and then he fell in line. It’s not as if Devers has a lot of options. It’s hard to expect that he’ll maintain such a firm line over the course of the season, particularly if he thinks there’s a chance it could hurt the team. Besides, you have to imagine that in a vacuum, Devers would prefer getting to play in the field, even if it’s at first base, to DHing.

There are legitimate baseball reasons to question the way the Red Sox handled all of this. Devers is a bad defender, but he’s also just 28 years old and he’s under contract for so very long. That’s awfully young to push a player off the only position he’s ever known and turn him into a DH, especially when he’s still one of the most valuable third basemen in the game. And why tell him to put away his glove? Wouldn’t he be the natural backup at third? Why not float the possibility of having him learn first base during spring training? Would giving him an opportunity to play defense some of the time — even at a new position — have made the move to DH more palatable? Had the team never considered the possibility that Casas might get hurt and miss time – you know, like he did in each of the last two seasons? What would the Red Sox have done if Bregman had been the one to get hurt? What were they planning to do if Bregman had a monster season (as is currently the case) and opted out of his contract this offseason? Would they have awkwardly asked Devers to return to third base less than a year after telling him he couldn’t hack it? Some of these questions must have reasonable answers, but it seems like some might not have been considered thoroughly.

Even now, with Masataka Yoshida still experiencing issues after shoulder surgery, it’s not like there’s a pressing reason for Devers to be at first base. The team has understandably expressed reluctance to move Roman Anthony to first base or DH. At least until Yoshida returns, it’s not like playing Devers at first base would open the door for a big bat to enter the lineup.

Still, the communication issues are much more concerning. There are, no doubt, players who would have taken all of this in stride, who wouldn’t have aired their grievances with reporters, who would have volunteered to take on a new position. In fact, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe published a whole list of players who switched positions to help their team. That’s not a good look for Devers. But it’s hard to fault him for being upset that the team went back on its word. And if you fault a player for telling the truth to the public, you should take at least as much issue with the organization that misled both him and the public. After 12 years, the team must have known Devers well enough to expect him to take this personally. And after the dustup in February, taking essentially the same tack – deny it publicly, then spring a complete reversal on him privately – borders on absurdity. Imagine being Devers. You’re the face of the franchise, you’re continually reassured that your position is safe, and then, late in spring training, you’re told that none of it was actually true, that you’ll no longer get to play in the field, ever again. Then, two months later, when it’s expedient, you’re told that also wasn’t true.

Either the Red Sox didn’t see any of this coming, or they did see it coming and just didn’t think it was important enough to find a more sensitive way to handle the situation. Both possibilities are absolutely perplexing. “These things tend to have a way of working themselves out” may be true, but it’s not a great organizational philosophy. Baseball is a business, but surely someone in the organization should know that it’s a bad idea to alienate a player in whom so much of the team’s future is entrusted.