The Boston Red Sox stunned the baseball world, and most of all the team’s own fans, by suddenly trading their highest paid superstar Rafael Devers to San Francisco on Sunday for a package of two pitchers from the Giants’ big league roster and two minor league prospects — a shocking move that has already been repeatedly described as coming “out of nowhere.”
Just two years ago, the Red Sox gave Devers the largest contract in team history — an 11-year extension with a total value of $313.5 million. But in addition to the four players they’ll receive, the Red Sox have now freed themselves from that massive obligation. The Giants agreed to assume the entirety of Devers remaining contract — approximately $250 million over nine seasons, including the remainder of the current one.
Even Ted Williams, the greatest hitter the Red Sox ever had and possibly the best in MLB history, never received an annual salary greater than his 1958 paycheck of $125,000 — about $1.4 million in today’s dollars. At the time, that figure made Williams the highest-paid player in baseball history.
Devers is due to make $31.3 million this year alone.
With High Salary Comes High Level of Responsibility
While that sum is, of course, not highly unusual for an elite player in today’s MLB economic environment, in the eyes of Red Sox brass, a contract of that size “comes with responsibilities to do what is right for the team and that Devers did not live up to those responsibilities,” according to longtime Boston Globe Red Sox reporter Peter Abraham. “They had enough and they traded him.”
News of the trade, coming about an hour after the Red Sox completed a three-game sweep at Fenway of the American League East-leading New York Yankees, left the team’s players shaken, according to a report by Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic, who reported that “shellshocked” players boarded their cross-country flight to Seattle after Sunday’s game “with Devers still on the ground, climbing into an Uber.”
According to a detailed account by another veteran Red Sox insider, Sean McAdam of MassLive, the trade had its roots as far back as the offseason when the Red Sox pursued third basemen Nolan Arenado of the St. Louis Cardinals and the one they eventually signed, former Houston Astros Gold Glover Alex Bregman.
Initially, Devers refused to switch from third base to designated hitter to accommodate Bregman and later refused to take up first base after a season-ending injury to Triston Casas. The 28-year-old three-time All-Star’s inflexibility “soured” Chief of Baseball Operations Craig Breslow and other team officials, McAdam reported.
Relationship Between Devers, Team ‘Irreparably Damaged’
“The Red Sox had decided that his refusal to even consider working out at first base following the season-ending injury to Triston Casas soured the organization, which came to believe that Devers was no longer willing to do what was in the best interest of the team,” McAdam wrote.
“When Breslow approached Devers about the prospect of moving to first to accommodate the team’s sudden need, Devers reacted with indignation and refused to even entertain the the possibility,” McAdam continued.
Devers then went public with his “indignation,” telling reporters that Breslow needed to a better job.
The Red Sox had said that there had been no decision over where Bregman would play on the infield, but “it was soon obvious that he would indeed be taking over at third,” and that infuriated Devers to the point where he considered asking for a trade — but decided against it.
“Several months later, the team dealt him anyway,” McAdam wrote, saying that the relationship between the star and the front office was “irreparably damaged” by the third base fiasco.
“Devers received mixed messages from some in the organization since the season began, which Devers saw as a symbol of the team’s own struggles to successfully communicate expectations to their star player, and making for what one person labeled ‘an unsalvageable situation,’” McAdam reported.
The Giants were not the first team to contact the Red Sox about trading for Devers. According to McAdam’s reporting, the Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays were known to have called about a deal, but “those teams were not as motivated as the Giants.”
