Stop infantilizing Rafael Devers

Asking if Rafael Devers should play first base now that Triston Casas is out for the year is like asking if the sun rises in the east or if the world is round. The answer is yes, and anyone who says otherwise has an axe they’d prefer to grind than see the Red Sox improve as a baseball team. With one exception, they’re not worth listening to. Unfortunately, the exception is Devers himself.

What started as a poor job of communication by new GM-type Craig Breslow in the winter is turning into a mind-numbing drama in mid-spring, with Devers telling the media about how bad this has made him feel, how hard moving to first base would be, and hinting at how little he cares for Breslow. He’s entitled to feel this way, and he’s entitled to make his own decisions based on his position as the team’s highest-profile best player and, still, its best hitter:

It wouldn’t matter if he was still hitting .089, either; he’s earned the right to stand his ground. Worse for us, he’s earned the right to be categorically wrong, and hoo boy, is he exercising that right.

Baseball is a weird team sport, in that it’s an individual sport trapped in a team dynamic, but it is a team sport, and Devers’ refusal to play first base makes the team worse. At age 28, he still looks like the cherubic youngster who burst on the scene as a 20-year-old rookie, but he’s in his ninth MLB season, and infantilizing him by talking around that fact doesn’t help anyone. The media circus is one thing; the refusal to accept what he has become (i.e., not a viable third baseman) as a player, is another, but it’s the unwillingness to help his team over an anachronistic sense of pride is entirely different. In this situation, nobody wins.

A fair question to ask of me, and I suppose it would be asked, is whether I believe his responsibility to switch positions comes with the gobs of money he’s making, and I’d probably flip that on its head; the only reason he has leverage here is the length of time he’s scheduled to play in Boston. He has the team over a barrel. Fringe players don’t get fussy about this sort of thing for plainly obvious reasons, lest they get shipped out of town. It’s star players that end up costing their teams wins out of pride far more often than benchwarmers, and it’s happening again.

The best example of this, ever, is arguably in the form of Derek Jeter, whose refusal to leave shortstop for the vastly superior Alex Rodriguez probably cost the Yankees a shot at a World Series or two (and thanks for that!). But it’s not apples to apples. The major, major difference is that the Yankees still benefitted in the end because they still added A-Rod to the lineup, and Jeter’s stubbornness was dealt with, logistically, up front; A-Rod knew exactly what he was walking into. It was idiotic, but it was clean, and all told, was a good baseball decision for New York, even if it wasn’t optimized.

Obviously, the Red Sox had their own version of this with the Xander Bogaerts situation, but Bogaerts wasn’t signed to a forever contract, and his lack of leverage landed him in San Diego. Following the Bogaerts playbook, Deers is digging in his heels and being applauded for it in some corners, and while I love any player sticking up to management in principle, it’s not a one-size-fits all situation.

It doesn’t fit here. Devers’s only leverage is his contract, one which he plainly earned and the power of which he’s free to wield however he likes. I just wish he wouldn’t do it in the most self-defeating way possible, nor do I think he should be praised for exercising his leverage in a misguided way in a misbegotten show of solidarity. No one is better off this way, least of all him. His says his teammates have his back, which I believe. My question is: Why doesn’t he have theirs?

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