Getty Triston Casas
The Boston Red Sox have reportedly held internal discussions about moving All Star third baseman Rafael Devers to first base in 2025. Even though Devers is the Red Sox’ highest-paid player, heading into the third season of a 10-year, $313.5 million contract, he has often been considered a defensive liability at third.
“Anyone else with his history of defensive mediocrity would’ve been benched or shifted elsewhere by now,” wrote veteran Boston sports columnist John Tomase for the NBC Sports Boston site.
The Red Sox may also have another motive to shift Devers across the diamond. They are rumored to be targeting a free agent acquisition of former Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Willy Adames. Adames has expressed a willingness to shift his own position on the diamond, to third base.
But shifting Devers to first leaves current power-hitting first baseman Triston Casas out in the cold — and a prime candidate to be traded. According to some baseball experts, Casas will likely never have a higher trade value. Though still considered a potential impact power hitter, Casas has fallen victim to the injury bug.
Over the last two seasons, his only two full big league campaigns after making his MLB debut in September of 2022, Casas appeared in only 195 games combined, including just 63 in 2024. If he succumbs to another significant injury in 2025, his value on the trade market plummets.
One reporter covering the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baron Dionis of Fansided, has now predicted that the Florida native who will turn 25 in January could be added to the Pirates’ roster. In exchange, the Pirates could send 25-year-old right handed pitcher Luis Ortiz, Dionis predicted.
After, like Casas, debuting in 2022 Ortiz has pitched two full seasons for Pittsburgh and appears to be showing improvement and versatility. He appeared in 37 games last season starting 15 of them. He posted a respectable 3.32 ERA and 1.113 WHIP. Ortiz could fill a role in relief for what was a shaky Red Sox bullpen in 2024, as well as filling in as a spot starter when needed.
Why would the Pirates do it? The long-struggling club is looking to quickly build a contender around generational pitching prospect Paul Skenes. The 2023 Number One overall draft pick won National League Rookie of the Year in 2024 and came close to pulling in a double honor. He finished third in the NL Cy Young Award voting.
But the Pirates finished in last place in the NL Central. The team’s 76-86 record was the eighth-worst of the 30 MLB teams. To take full advantage of having Skenes on their roster, the Pirates and General Manager Ben Cherington will likely be looking to improve the team quickly.
Cherington is familiar with the Red Sox organization. He started as a scout for Boston in 1999 and worked his way to the general manager position from 2012 through 2015 and assembled the World Series-winning Red Sox team of 2013, making him a natural trading partner for current Red Sox baseball operations head Craig Breslow, who pitched for that 2013 Red Sox team.
Breslow and Cherington have done business recently. In July, 2024, they swapped former first-round picks, when The Red Sox sent their top 2020 selection, 17th overall, Nick Yorke to Pittsburgh for the Pirates 2019 top draft selection righty pitcher Quinn Priester, who was the fifth overall pick.
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently “Last of the Gladiators” published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin
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