SEATTLE – Though the stunning trade of Rafael Devers to the Giants on Sunday will help the Red Sox lean into their youth movement, led by the Big Three of Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow wanted to make one thing abundantly clear.
“It’s important to point out that this is in no way signifying a waving of the white flag on 2025,” Breslow said prior to Monday’s game in Seattle. “We are as committed as we were six months ago to putting a winning team on the field, to competing for the division and making a deep postseason run.”
After initially being reluctant to switch off third base and move to DH following the Spring Training signing of Alex Bregman, Devers declined to play first base when Triston Casas suffered a season-ending injury to his left knee on May 2. That seemed to be a catalyst for the exit of Devers from the franchise that signed him as an international free agent in 2013.
“In the end, I think it's pretty clear that we couldn't find alignment with Raffy,” said Red Sox president/CEO Sam Kennedy. “We all worked at it over the last several months, going back to the offseason, starting with Alex Cora and Craig and the staff, and then up to me, and all the way up to John Henry.
“We worked at it. We had a different vision for him going forward than he had and we couldn't get there. We couldn't find alignment, and we reached that inflection point and made the decision to make a big move.”
One of the things that caught people off guard about the trade was the timing. The Red Sox had just swept the Yankees at Fenway Park on Sunday to make it seven wins in their last eight games. A couple of hours later, Devers stepped off the team plane before takeoff to Seattle after learning he had been traded.
Just like that, he was a former member of the Red Sox.
“The timing was absolutely not great,” said Breslow. “And we don't always have the choice about when these things kind of reach the point of execution outside of … we absolutely could have walked away or said we're not going to make this trade, but we do ultimately believe that it was best for the organization.”
For the Red Sox, who entered Monday’s game with a 37-36 record, trying to set a strong and selfless culture on a young team played a role in the trade.
“As we think about the identity and the culture and the environment that is created by great teams, there was something amiss here,” said Breslow. “And it was something that we needed to act decisively to course correct.”
After Devers publicly criticized Breslow for asking him to play first base in an interview session on May 8, Kennedy and principal owner John Henry flew to Kansas City the next day to try to smooth over the situation, speaking directly to Devers. At the time, the club described the conversation as “productive.”
However, nothing changed, and Devers continued to be used exclusively as a DH -- and doing it at a high level. In his 1,053rd and final game for the Red Sox on Sunday, Devers mauled his 215th career homer and 500th extra-base hit.
“It was a baseball trade because we did what we felt it was in the best interests of the Red Sox on and off the field to win championships and to continue to ferociously and relentlessly pursue a culture that we want everyone in that clubhouse to embody and doing everything in their power, night in and night out, to help the team,” said Kennedy.
It was Breslow who ultimately had to find a trading partner, and the Giants -- who famously finished second in the Aaron Judge sweepstakes at the 2022 Winter Meetings -- were willing to take on the roughly $254 million that Devers is owed through ‘33.
The Red Sox got righty Jordan Hicks, lefty Kyle Harrison and a pair of prospects in outfielder James Tibbs III (rated by MLB Pipeline as Boston’s No. 6 prospect) and righty Jose Bello.
“There was no mandate [to trade Devers],” said Breslow. “The mandate is to assemble the best team that we possibly could. And in order to do that, we needed to create a more functional roster, and give certain guys more playing time, to be able to rotate through the DH spot, potentially match up there. And also, this is a roster that certainly has some needs, and we can talk about starting pitching and bullpen help, and we think that we addressed some of those in the return that we had in this deal. But additionally, I do think that it gives us some resources as we head toward the Deadline.”
Through all the significant moves the Red Sox have made since the end of last season -- the club’s third straight missing the playoffs -- Breslow had steadfastly said each transaction was eyed toward the 2025 season above all else.
Was trading Devers contrary to that goal?
“Yeah, it's a good question, and I understand why the initial reaction would be that,” said Breslow. “It’d be tough to sit here and say when you move a player of Raffy’s caliber, when you take that bat out of the lineup, how could I sit here and say that we're a better team?
“I acknowledge that on paper, we’re not going to have the same lineup that we did. But this isn't about the game that is played on paper. This is about the game that's played on the field, and ultimately about winning the most games that we can. In order to do that, we are trying to put together the most functional and complete team that we can.”
How will the team become more functional post-Devers?
“I think when you consider the flexibility, the ability to give some of the young players some run, the opportunity to maybe repackage some of the resources and fill some voids in the roster as early as approaching this year's Deadline, and being really intentional about the environment that we create for these young players to thrive in, then I do think that there is a real chance that at the end of the season, when we're looking back, we’ll have won more games than we otherwise would have,” Breslow said.