BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox thought they would be better off with a happy clubhouse than a disgruntled Rafael Devers.
A day after trading their erstwhile third baseman to the San Francisco Giants, Red Sox President Sam Kennedy told reporters that Devers’ refusal to change positions made it untenable for him to remain with the team.
“In terms of what was missing, it just was that alignment in terms of what we felt we needed from him that would be in the absolute best interest of the ballclub,” Kennedy said. “That’s a non-starter for us. We have to have that. We couldn’t get there. … So we made the decision that we made.”
Less than two years after signing Devers to a 10-year, $313.5 million contract, the Red Sox sent him to the San Francisco Giants for pitchers Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison and a pair of prospects. The deal came on the day Boston earned a fifth straight win and completed a three-game sweep of the rival New York Yankees — a rare cause for excitement this season.
“It was a shock for sure after the run that we just had this past week,” pitcher Garrett Crochet said in Seattle before a game against the Mariners. “There’s a lot of season ahead of us. So, it’s really just keeping your eyes forward and knowing that there’s still work to be done.”
Asked what the move means for this year’s team, closer Aroldis Chapman said: “I don’t know. I don’t really know.”
Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow acknowledged on the conference call that the deal leaves a hole in the lineup, but he hoped it would pay off this season. Although there is a newly created need for a power hitter, the team now has roster and payroll flexibility to add players at the trade deadline, he said.
“It’s important to point out that this is in no way signifying a waving of the white flag on 2025,” he said. “We are as committed as we were six months ago to putting a winning team on the field, to competing for the division and making a deep postseason run.”
Devers, a homegrown three-time All-Star, joined Ted Williams as the only Red Sox players with multiple 30-homer seasons before turning 25. But the slugger’s relationship with the team soured when it signed Gold Glove third baseman Alex Bregman in February. Devers, who led the league in errors by a third baseman in each of the last seven seasons, balked at moving to designated hitter and then refused to play either first or third when Bregman and first baseman Triston Casas both got injured.
“We have a responsibility to do everything we can to improve the club. And we felt we were doing that by bringing Alex Bregman to the Red Sox,” Kennedy said. “And we have a responsibility, ironically, to every single player in that clubhouse to do everything in our power to improve the club. So it was something that we were committed to doing. And I do not regret that for one minute.”
But they lost Devers in the process.
“We worked at it. We had a different vision for him going forward than he had, and we couldn’t get there. We couldn’t find alignment,” Kennedy said. “And we reached that inflection point and made the decision to make a big move.”
The move came as a shock to Red Sox fans still salty over the salary dump of Mookie Betts in February 2020 — after he won the 2018 AL MVP award — in a trade that yielded little in return. The team also let Xander Bogaerts leave as a free agent before deciding Devers was the player they were willing to invest in.
Now, just one full season later, he’s gone, too.
“There’s some reasons that it didn’t work out,” manager Alex Cora said. “But the last few months hasn’t been easy. We made decisions in the offseason. Circumstances changed in the last month and that’s the business decision we made as an organization. Now Raffy is going to be with the Giants and like I said, we have to turn the page and be ready for this team.”
Breslow insisted the deal was not an attempt to cut payroll — like the deals for Betts, who went on to win two World Series in Los Angeles, or Chris Sale, who won the NL Cy Young Award in his first season with the Braves. The baseball boss acknowledged he second-guessed himself over how he handled the Bregman signing, which caught Devers by surprise, and the attempts to get the 28-year-old All-Star to change positions.
“I think about that question all of the time,” Breslow said. “This is not the outcome that we had expected. And it’s forced me to reflect on the interactions that I’ve had, not just with Raffy, but with other players and opportunities to communicate differently.”
The Red Sox winning streak has come with Bregman and outfielder Wilyer Abreu sidelined, joining Casas and outfielder Masataka Yoshida on the injured list. In their place, the team has relied on callups like Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer and top prospect Roman Anthony, who made his major league debut to much hype.
Breslow said the front office will continue to look for ways to improve the team, with a middle-of-the-lineup hitter a new need.
“For some reason, this team (is) an example where the whole was not greater than the sum of the parts,” he said. “And being great teammates and sacrificing and stepping up for each other and embodying this shared vision, we believe that those are principles that we need to be faithful to.
“And so, at the end of the season, I think we could look back and say we’ve won more games than we otherwise would have,” he said, “because of the way that this roster is now able to come together.”
