{"id":56359,"date":"2025-06-16T07:55:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T07:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=56359"},"modified":"2025-06-16T07:55:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T07:55:45","slug":"red-sox-insider-details-disturbing-events-leading-to-devers-trade-that-shook-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=56359","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Insider Details Disturbing Events Leading to Devers Trade That Shook MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"c-content entry-content\">\n<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\" class=\"has-video wp-caption \">\n<div class=\"h-responsive\">\n<figure class=\"h-responsive__inner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Rafael-Devers-Trade-MLB.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Rafael-Devers-Trade-MLB.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Rafael-Devers-Trade-MLB.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Rafael-Devers-Trade-MLB.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Rafael Devers\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" data-img-load-time=\"830\" data-dom-ready-time=\"923\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-credit\">Getty<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"featured-widget-area\">\n<div id=\"heavy_multi_stn_video_player_widget-4\" class=\"stn-player-cls stn-player-container\">\n<div data-stn-player=\"wfgg3pv0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Boston Red Sox stunned the baseball world, and\u00a0most of all the team\u2019s 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\u2019 big league roster and two minor league prospects \u2014 a shocking move that has already been\u00a0repeatedly described\u00a0as coming \u201cout of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just two years ago, the Red Sox gave Devers the largest contract in team history \u2014 an\u00a011-year extension with a total\u00a0value of $313.5 million. But in addition to the four players they\u2019ll receive, the Red Sox have now freed themselves from that massive obligation. The Giants\u00a0agreed to assume\u00a0the entirety of Devers remaining contract \u2014 approximately $250 million over nine seasons, including the remainder of the current one.<\/p>\n<p>Even Ted Williams, the greatest hitter the Red Sox ever had and possibly the best in MLB history,\u00a0never received an annual salary greater than his 1958 paycheck of $125,000 \u2014 about $1.4 million in today\u2019s dollars. At the time, that figure made Williams the highest-paid player in baseball history.<\/p>\n<p>Devers is due to make $31.3 million this year alone.<\/p>\n<h2>With High Salary Comes High Level of Responsibility<\/h2>\n<p>While that sum is, of course, not highly unusual for an elite player in today\u2019s MLB economic environment, in the eyes of Red Sox brass, a contract of that size \u201ccomes with responsibilities to do what is right for the team and that Devers did not live up to those responsibilities,\u201d according to\u00a0longtime\u00a0<em>Boston Globe<\/em>\u00a0Red Sox reporter\u00a0Peter Abraham. \u201cThey had enough and they traded him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s players shaken, according to\u00a0a report by Jen McCaffrey of\u00a0<em>The Athletic<\/em>, who reported that \u201cshellshocked\u201d players boarded their cross-country flight to Seattle after Sunday\u2019s game \u201cwith Devers still on the ground, climbing into an Uber.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to a detailed account by another\u00a0veteran Red Sox insider, Sean McAdam\u00a0of\u00a0<em>MassLive<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s inflexibility \u201csoured\u201d Chief of Baseball Operations Craig Breslow and other team officials, McAdam reported.<\/p>\n<h2>Relationship Between Devers, Team \u2018Irreparably Damaged\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe 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,\u201d McAdam wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Breslow approached Devers about the prospect of moving to first to accommodate the team\u2019s sudden need, Devers reacted with indignation and refused to even entertain the the possibility,\u201d McAdam continued.<\/p>\n<p>Devers then went public with his \u201cindignation,\u201d telling reporters that Breslow needed to a better job.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox had said that there had been no decision over where Bregman would play on the infield, but \u201cit was soon obvious that he would indeed be taking over at third,\u201d and that infuriated Devers to the point where he considered asking for a trade \u2014 but decided against it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeveral months later, the team dealt him anyway,\u201d McAdam wrote, saying that the relationship between the star and the front office was \u201cirreparably damaged\u201d by the third base fiasco.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDevers received mixed messages from some in the organization since the season began, which Devers saw as a symbol of the team\u2019s own struggles to successfully communicate expectations to their star player, and making for what one person labeled \u2018an unsalvageable situation,&#8217;\u201d McAdam reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Giants were not the first team to contact the Red Sox about trading for Devers. According to McAdam\u2019s reporting, the Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays were known to have called about a deal, but \u201cthose teams were not as motivated as the Giants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getty The Boston Red Sox stunned the baseball world, and\u00a0most of all the team\u2019s own fans, by suddenly trading their highest paid superstar Rafael Devers to San&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Red Sox Insider Details Disturbing Events Leading to Devers Trade That Shook MLB - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=56359\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Red Sox Insider Details Disturbing Events Leading to Devers Trade That Shook MLB - 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