When the Boston Red Sox traded their $313.5 million designated hitter Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants last Sunday night, it became glaringly obvious that the relationship between the 28-year-old three-time All-Star and the organization’s management had broken down beyond repair.
There is plenty of blame to go around in the unfortunate affair, with Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow taking his share publicly in a Zoom press conference Monday.
“I need to own the things that I could have done better,” Breslow said, adding that he hoped if a similar situation arose in the future, he would handle it better.
The deterioration of the relationship has generally been attributed to a failure in “communication,” and an extensive new report by ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan published Friday made clear that Devers also bears responsibility for the breakdown.
According to Passan, the Red Sox assured the star DH that they would “let (him) know” if negotiations with free agent third baseman Alex Bregman became serious. If the team signed Bregman, that would put Devers’ spot at third base in doubt, necessitating a full-time switch to DH.
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Manager Alex Cora attempted to arrange an in-person meeting with Devers in the star’s home country of the Dominican Republic, according to Passan’s report, “but Devers did not respond to messages.”
Passan added that such behavior was unsurprising because Devers “typically goes off the grid upon his winter retreat to Samana,” his hometown in the Dominican.
Nonetheless some members of the organization — Passan did not reveal who — “were disappointed” in Devers’ unwillingness to communicate.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, apparently did not make a greater effort to “flag” Devers because they did not have confidence that they could sign Bregman, or acquire another Gold Glove third baseman, Nolan Arenado of the St. Louis Cardinals, who was at the time still available on the trade market.
Other aspects of Devers’ behavior irked the Red Sox as well. According to longtime baseball reporter Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe, Devers annoyed the team by largely refusing to do postgame interviews with television broadcasters or other media — not even with the Red Sox’s own cable network, NESN.
According to accounts by both Abraham and Passan, Devers was not informed of the trade on Sunday until he and his teammates were on board the team plane for a flight to Seattle, where they would play the following day.
Cora reportedly approached him, and the flight was slightly delayed as the manager informed him that he was now a San Francisco Giant. Devers gathered his possessions and deplaned, returning to Fenway Park to clean out his locker, according to the report.
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