Sunday evening, the Boston Red Sox stunned the Major League Baseball world by trading star 3B/DH Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants for pitchers Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison, among others.
The three-time All-Star is in the second season of his 10-year, $313.5 million contract, but his relationship with Red Sox brass soured after he was moved to designated hitter. While it had been known that there were frustrations on both sides, the move came as a genuine shock.
While Robert Murray of Fansided first reported the news, ESPN’s Jeff Passan shared many of the details surrounding the surprising move. He then appeared on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball to provide context for how Devers and the Red Sox got here.
“I think it’s very simple,” said Passan when asked by SNB announcer Karl Ravech about why the trade happened. “Rafael Devers, after all that had happened with Boston this spring, the move from third base to DH, then them wanting him to play first base, did not want to be in Boston anymore. And the Red Sox saw this as an opportunity to get rid of more than $250 million that he was owed. And the San Francisco Giants are taking on every penny of his remaining contract that runs through 2033. At the same time, the Red Sox in Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks get a couple of arms. They’re also getting James Tibbs, the first-round pick from the San Francisco Giants last year, 13th overall out of Florida State, as well as one more prospect.
“Regardless of the mechanics of this deal, Karl, it is a shocker. The timing is shocking. The magnitude of the player is shocking. And again, Rafael Devers was supposed to be the guy that Boston was building around in the future, and now he’s going to be a San Francisco Giant.”
As for how the Red Sox can justify the deal given how well Devers has been playing, Passan says that it was a matter of realizing that this situation wasn’t going to improve, and they were willing to take the hit.
“In the near term, this seemingly makes the Boston Red Sox a worse team,” he said. “And let’s not remember all of the trauma that exists still in Red Sox Nation after the trade of Mookie Betts. When you have a player of that caliber, he’s the sort. You tend to want to keep around for the majority, if not entirely, of his career, particularly when he’s a homegrown guy. But at the end of the day, I think the Red Sox had just grown a little bit tired, and Rafael Devers is the same.”
Indeed, Red Sox fans must be having flashbacks to the Betts saga, which ended with Boston trading a young star to a West Coast team where he went on to win the World Series. While this may have been an inevitable conclusion to the situation, the Red Sox will have their work cut out for them the next time they have a young superstar, and they’re trying to convince their fans that they’ll do what it takes to keep them happy.