Since the offseason began, rumors that the Red Sox 25-year-old first baseman Triston Casas was about to be traded seemed like the most frequent source of buzz around the Boston team. But Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow repeatedly denied that Casas was being offered to other teams.

“I’m not totally sure where it comes from,” Breslow said in late December. “We’re not shopping Triston. We see him as a guy that can hit in the middle of the lineup for a really long time here in Boston.”

But according to a December 26 report by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, Breslow’s denials were not entirely true. Feinsand reported that, even after acquiring lefty Garrett Crochet in a trade with the Chicago White Sox, the Red Sox were still in the market for a second starting pitcher and attempted to set up a deal with the Seattle Mariners that would bring righty Luis Castillo to Boston.

“But according to sources, the Mariners wanted Triston Casas back in a trade, something the Red Sox were unwilling to do unless Seattle took back Masataka Yoshida, who has three years and $55.8 million remaining on his contract,” Feinsand reported at the time.

Casas Reportedly Offered in Trade Despite Team Denial

In other words, Casas was being offered by the Red Sox as trade bait — an allegation MassLive Red Sox beat writer Chris Cotillo appeared to support when on January 5 he wrote, “there’s still a strong industry belief that Triston Casas is very much available.”

“I’m aware Breslow seemed to dismiss it,” Cotillo continued, referring to the Casas trade allegation. “His dismissal does not discount the fact executives with other teams have been told he’s available.”

About a week later, Cotillo quoted Casas himself dismissing the trade rumors as “clickbait,” because “they’ve told me that none of the rumors are true.”

What was going on? Were the Red Sox misleading their own players? Writing on Saturday, Nat Gordon — co-host of the WEEI-affiliated podcast Play Tessie — seemed to think so.

“Not sure how much I love the pattern of the FO [front office] misleading their core players,” Gordon wrote. “Remember when Triston Casas said they told him the widely reported trade rumors were nonsense?”

The “pattern” Gordon was referring to included both the Casas trade rumors, and third baseman Rafael Devers claim that when he signed his franchise-record 11-year, $331 million contract extension in January of 2023, the Red Sox promised him that the third base position was his.

That is why, Devers said in February, he refused to become a full-time designated hitter when the Red Sox signed former Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman to a three-year, $120 million deal at the outset of Spring Training this year.

Unclear if Red Sox Misled Devers About Third Base

“That was definitely was discussed when I signed, that I would be playing this position for a long time,” Devers said after the Bregman signing, as quoted by Cotillo. “I don’t know what caused the change.”

When asked about Devers’ comments, manager Alex Cora said, “Different people here. There is a different leader here. Chaim is in St. Louis now.” He was referring to Chaim Bloom, Breslow’s predecessor who negotiated with Devers on the 2023 contract extension. Bloom is now in the St. Louis Cardinals front office and is set to become president of baseball operations there in 2026.

But Cora, perhaps significantly, did not deny that the Red Sox had made the promise about the third base position to Devers. On the other hand, given that Devers’ contract takes him through his age 36 season in 2033, it seems unlikely that the Red Sox would make an open-ended promise to him that the third base job would be his for the duration of his Red Sox tenure.

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