The Boston Red Sox suffered a loss to the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday but there was a major win behind the scenes.
The team announced it reached an eight-year, $130 million extension agreement with rookie standout Roman Anthony. The deal could prove to be a major coup for the Red Sox if Anthony’s promising debut extends into the rest of his early career and it offered a clear direction for the franchise after a listless trade deadline and a surprising decision to trade away franchise slugger Rafael Devers.
Devers was performing as the team’s best hitter when the Red Sox announced that they had traded him to the San Francisco Giants following his public refusals to change positions. At the time, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow defended that decision as one that would instill more of a winning culture in the team.
And during the announcement of Anthony’s extension, Breslow doubled down on his lightly-veiled criticism of the former star with another shot.
“We felt like what was best for the organization at the time was to trade Raffy,” Breslow said, per Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe. “And (Wednesday) we thought that what was best for the organization is to come to an agreement to keep Roman in a Red Sox uniform for a really long time.”
The implication that Anthony is a better long-term solution for the team than Devers might be taken as a little insulting, given that the rookie has just 47 big-league games of experience while the veteran is a three-time All-Star.
But after opting to move away from Devers, Breslow seems free to use the more than $250 million he was owed in ways he seems fit. And he made it very clear that Anthony is the type of player he wants to invest in, whereas cutting ties with Devers was the best outcome for his team, despite the success he enjoyed in Boston.
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