Thursday afternoon was supposed to a be feel good kind of afternoon for the Boston Red Sox. There was a routine shutout win to avoid a sweep and a late homer by Rafael Devers who is spending the entire season as a full-time designated hitter.
It is a position change for Devers because the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman for at least this year to play third base. Third base also happens to be Devers’ position but Bregman is regarded as the better defender and the Red Sox asked their franchise player to switch to being a DH during spring training.
Recently after Triston Casas ruptured the patellar tendon in his left knee and was lost for the season, the Red Sox were seeking a power hitting bat to hold down first base so led by chief baseball officer and former reliever Craig Breslow, they thought to ask Devers about doing so.
It turned out it was not as cut and dry as a player accepting a position change and Devers basically said that while telling reporters in Boston about his reluctance to switch positions for the second time this season.
“They had the conversation with me,” Devers told reporters through an interpreter. “I don’t think, for me personally, it’s the best decision after they asked me to play a different position. And I only had two months playing this position, to all of a sudden have me try to play another position. So, from my end, it doesn’t seem like a good decision.”
This has a been somewhat turbulent time for Devers, who signed a 10-year, $330 million in Jan. 2023 after the Red Sox made no effort to retain Xander Bogaerts. They sat out the first offseason of the new contract but were active in the offseason following a 78-84 finish, signing Bregman shortly before spring training.
At first there was some talk about Bregman going to second base and keeping Devers at third. Instead, the Red Sox asked him about going to designated hitter and even that was annoying enough to Devers, who reportedly was upset enough to consider seeking a trade out of the Red Sox.
Eventually Devers agreed to the first switch and struggled at first by going hitless in his first 19 at-bats over Boston’s first five games. Lately, those numbers are correcting slightly and Devers was voicing his displeasure as someone with a .255 average, a .379 on-base-percentage, six homers and 25 RBIs and he voiced his thoughts as someone hitting .383 over his past 12 games.
The success seems to be related to Devers getting comfortable with the routine of being the designated hitter and spending time during games taking swings, watching the game unfold and seeing how opposing pitchers are throwing.
“I know I’m a ballplayer but at the same time they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” Devers said. “In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove — that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH. So right now I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”
The Red Sox are in this situation because they are using Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro in a platoon at first. Gonzalez is up to 32 career appearances at first while Toro is up to 18 career appearances there.
And the lack of other options for the position is what Devers also seemed to hint at in his comments about not moving to first base.
“They told me that they didn’t want to allow me to play any other position,” Devers said. “And now I think they should do their job essentially and hit the market and look for another player (to play first base). I’m not sure why they want me to be in between, the way they have me now.”
It is hardly an ideal situation but the best news for the Red Sox is the discussion about position change does not appear to be impacting his relationship with teammates and not his performance at the plate, with the latter being the most important thing if the Red Sox are going to be in the mix for a playoff spot in the final month
