ESPN NFL analyst Damien Woody isn’t particularly renowned for his thoughts on baseball. But like many other pundits outside baseball media, the Red Sox decision to trade Rafael Devers was simply too big for Woody and the rest of the Get Up cast to ignore on Monday morning.
On paper, Monday’s cast of Get Up, which included Mike Greenberg, Bart Scott, Dan Graziano, and Damien Woody, didn’t exactly profile as the ideal group to discuss the Red Sox-Giants trade.
However, Woody requested to be given some time to discuss the deal. And he certainly didn’t waste the short time he was given, putting his favorite team, the Red Sox, on blast for “acting like a small-market team” and moving their disgruntled star.
“I got a text from D-Wood last night saying, ‘Greeny, damn it, I need to weigh in on the Devers trade,'” Greenberg said, opening the floor for Woody to share his opinions on the move.
“Bro, like literally… We just swept the Yankees right?” said Woody. “I am talking crazy smack to my 13-year-old son because he is a huge Yankees fan. I am giving him the business, all this. We win five straight, five, we swept the Yankees. And then all of the sudden, Jeff Passan… I’m gonna have to talk to you my brother. Because I don’t like this kind of news being dropped. My man Devers gets dealt like that? Boston is acting like the Tampa Bay Rays. Like we’re a small market team. How could you do that?
“I don’t know what the hell we are doing in Boston right now. This feels like Mookie Betts all over again, trading a young superstar like this. Listen, I know he didn’t want to play first base. But guess what, there is a lot of organizations that deal with disgruntled superstars. Guess what, find a way to deal with it! I mean, bruh, I could literally walk off the set right now because I’m still pissed.”
Woody played the first five years of his NFL career for the New England Patriots, so it’s not all that much of a surprise to see him so passionately rooting for the Red Sox.
Still, Woody is far from the voice most would expect to be so passionate in regards to a baseball trade. But as we recently saw with the Mavericks-Lakers Luka Dončić trade, perceived incompetence from a front office sparks intrigue, for better or worse, from media members you wouldn’t typically expect to comment on a particular sport.
In the Red Sox’s defense, some of the pieces that they got in return at least have some potential. In particular, Kyle Harrison was ranked the No. 23 prospect in all of baseball entering last season. And while he hasn’t exactly shown flashes of brilliance at the MLB level yet, there is still a chance that he could turn into a front-end starter someday at just 23 years of age.
It’s unfair to judge this trade until a few years down the road when some of the pieces that the Red Sox got in return start to develop.
But on paper, Woody’s comments largely fall in line with the overwhelming conclusion most around the sports world have settled on.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.