Rafael Devers is among the best hitters in Major League Baseball, deriving tremendous value from his abilities at the plate despite his not-so-elite abilities in the field.
Those defensive struggles have been the source of constant derision and division this offseason, as the Boston Red Sox have fumbled around trying to configure their depth chart with Devers and free agent acquisition Alex Bregman in tow.
For quite a while, the team was adamant that Devers would remain at third base while Bregman, the reigning American League Gold Glove winner at the hot corner, would move to second.
But with Devers starting slow this spring as he nurses injuries to both shoulders — one he sustained on a diving play at third base — Bregman has assumed full-time duties at the position for the Red Sox in spring training.
It's all come to a head in recent days. Devers reluctantly admitted that he would play wherever the team needed him to, which sounded like a peace offering... until reports came from Sean McAdam of MassLive that Devers was considering demanding a trade out Boston.
So, where do the Red Sox go from here?
Rafael Devers is too important to trade, but not good enough to demand everything
It shouldn't be news to anyone remotely interested in the team that the Red Sox have an infield logjam they need to sort out.
The ideal outcome of this situation from a team-building point of view probably looks as such:
Bregman stays on third base; Devers and Triston Casas split duties between first base and designated hitter; Trevor Story stays healthy and plays shortstop; top prospect Kristian Campbell wins the second base job out of spring training. Masataka Yoshida (and his contract) would then be traded to free up the DH spot.
Now, I'll repeat that situation is the ideal outcome. It's far from the most likely. It will be very difficult to trade Yoshida given that he's recovering from shoulder surgery, is coming off a down year, and has a doozy of a contract ($54 million remaining over the next three seasons). AN
Of course, a lot of that also hinges on Story staying healthy enough to play shortstop full-time. Suffice to say, that's not the most likely outcome.
Regardless, the team simply can't keep Devers on third. He has -62 Defensive Runs Saved and -29 Outs Above Average through his career at the hot corner. That hasn't been enough to stop him from being worth 3.7 WAR per 162 games, but that total would be a lot higher if he wasn't patrolling third base to the tune of -3.6 dWAR during his time in the big leagues.
Devers is among the best offensive players in the sport. Guys with a career .856 OPS at 28 years old don't just fall out of trees. But he's also not so singularly great in the way that Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani are that he deserves to have the Red Sox's plans warped around him. He makes the team better as he is, not as he wants to be.
If he accepts a Yordan Alvarez-type move to being a full-time designated hitter, then Devers may discover a new ceiling at the plate all while giving Boston a chance to field its best infield defense in nearly a decade.
If he doesn't accept that... well, the Red Sox can't afford to trade him. Their outlook looks a let less rosy, both in the near- and long-term, without him. So they better throw him a bone now — perhaps by making the playoffs for the first time since 2021 — before this relationship derails all the way.