Rafael Devers did what his bosses wanted. The Red Sox went out and grabbed a big-time addition over the winter, but to maximize their investment they needed Devers to shift away from his preferred position—the one he’s been playing his entire career, and the one the Red Sox extended him a nine-figure contract to continue playing off into the future. Devers wasn’t happy about the request and resisted for a while. He eventually caved, and then he endured an embarrassing, historically awful start to the season while adjusting to this new deal. But he’s recovered admirably and been a reliable and productive contributor for a fun and competitive Red Sox team.
Now the team is at it again. First baseman Triston Casas, off to a hateful, miserable start of his own, nuked his left knee while trying to beat out an infield single on May 2 and has been lost for the year. The Red Sox have since tried out Romy Gonzalez, Abraham Toro, and Nick Sogard over at first, with results that you would call broadly lousy—7-for-26 at the plate with zero extra-base hits—were it not for the fact that Casas was producing an OPS+ of [awful retching noises]. It’s not that these are especially terrible baseball players—although scanning Toro’s Baseball Reference page is causing an alarming intensification of the retching—but certainly none of those poor bozos is the sort of guy a team is eager to get into the lineup, least of all a team with semi-credible playoff aspirations.
But the Red Sox do not lack guys. The lineup tile-sliding gets so much easier to manage if the open position is at designated hitter, rather than at first base. Unfortunately, the player presently holding down DH is Devers, who is there only because his bosses insisted that it was best for the team for him to hang up the glove. Soon after Casas’s injury, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow came around, prodding Devers to accept another move. Devers was annoyed, and he refused. On Thursday, he described this standoff to various members of the media.
“I know I’m a ballplayer,” Devers said, via translator, per Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. “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.”
Devers has professional experience at third base, second base, and shortstop, but first base is an entirely different set of responsibilities. Players can train for the gig for years and still suck mondo ass at it, scrambling an otherwise perfectly competent infield.
There isn’t quite as solid a baseball foundation behind this request as there was for the move to DH. Devers is kind of lousy over in the hot corner, and Alex Bregman is a wizard, and the Red Sox improved both their lineup and their defense by snagging his services, even if they did it without running their intentions past their franchise player. This time, they’re asking Devers to do something he’s never done before—a move that might make him look terrible and might harm the team’s defense, which is only about average as it is. On the other hand, the Red Sox would prefer to use Masataka Yoshida in their lineup over any of their present options at first base, and Devers shifting out of the DH slot would make that possible. Also, not for nothing, they’re probably about ready to call up Roman Anthony, baseball’s consensus top overall prospect, and the jiggering is easiest if they can use the DH to move players around as needed.
But Devers is still smarting from the move from third, and he’s feeling harried by Breslow. “I’m not certain what he has with me,” Devers said of his team’s general manager, a former professional ballplayer. “He played ball and I would like to think that he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy.” Devers wants the Red Sox personnel people to “do their jobs” and go out and find someone to man first base, without making it his responsibility to play stop-gap. “I don’t feel they stayed true to their word. They told me I was going to play this position, DH. Now they’re going back on that.”
Devers was frank enough in this media session to cause a minor freak-out in the Boston front office. On Friday, a plane carrying all of Breslow, team CEO Sam Kennedy, and owner John Henry flew from Boston to Kansas City. Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic reported Saturday that Henry and Red Sox manager Alex Cora met privately with Devers ahead of the team’s weekend series against the Royals.
Breslow, who was not in the meeting, was scold-y and paternal when asked about its objectives. “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,” he said. “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.”
Devers has five hits and a walk through the first two games of the Royals series. He has not played in the field in either game. Also, no one else on the Red Sox was injured, so for now the gridlock remains. But maybe another injury would only make Devers’s situation worse. “Next thing you know,” said Devers, “someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield.” Things are going great over there.
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