The Boston Red Sox shook up the organization on Sunday by stunningly trading Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants just three years into his 10-year, $313.5 million deal.
The decision to trade Devers ultimately seems to have stemmed from his unwillingness to put the team first when it came to his defensive position. He was initially displeased about having to move to DH after the team acquired Alex Bregman to play third base, and was resistant to the idea of playing first base in the wake of Triston Casas’s season-ending injury.
That didn’t sit well with management and ownership, who ultimately pulled the plug on Devers’s time in Boston.
Red Sox legend David Ortiz addressed Devers’s departure during an interview with baseball content creator Yancen Pujols.
Ortiz offered his honest assessment of the situation, saying, “Players need to take this as an example. Nobody is indispensable. … You need to be smart and you need to understand the situation. Your worst enemy is your ego,” Ortiz said, translated from Spanish.
Ortiz suggested that Devers wasn’t willing to step forward as a leader and help his team by covering first base due to his ego, and that the trade is living proof that no player, regardless of their contract status or how long they’ve been in an organization, is out of reach of being traded, especially one who is quarreling with ownership.
Devers played nine seasons for the Red Sox and made three All-Star teams. This year, he has a .905 OPS with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs in his first 73 games.
