Brock Holt knows what the everyday grind of a baseball season is like. The former MLB utilityman played 10 seasons in the big leagues, including seven with the Red Sox. Holt played in Boston from 2013 to 2019, overlapping with both Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers.
Bogaerts and Devers have become key cogs in Boston’s machine. However, they could both hit the open market this summer. Holt, like many Red Sox fans – and even David Ortiz –, doesn’t want to see that happen.
Holt pleaded for the Red Sox to sign Bogaerts and Devers on Audacy’s The Bradfo Sho podcast.
“I love Devers. Pay the man,” Holt said (43:11 in player above). “You gotta keep Devers. You have to keep Bogey. You have to.”
“I get it, it’s a business, but Devers obviously deserves what he’s getting. Bogey is the face of the Red Sox right now, in my opinion. You can’t take him out. The last few years you’ve gotten rid of Mookie, you’ve gotten rid of guys like (Andrew Benintendi), there’s been a lot of turnover. Bogey’s been the constant.”
Bogaerts has rarely missed a game since joining the Red Sox full-time in 2014. He played at least 136 games in all seven full seasons since then, and only missed four games in the shortened 2020 season.
“He’s so important for that team. To be able to plug him in at shortstop every single day… It’s so impressive to post up and man the position. It’s a physically demanding position and he’s a big man.”
Not only has Bogaerts been playing nearly everyday, he’s done it at a premiere position, as Holt said.
The Red Sox have played 1,125 regular-season games since 2015. Bogaerts has started at shortstop in 1,015 of them (plus 10 more appearances there). That's over 90% of Boston's games and nearly 9,000 innings.
“There’s just not as much stock put into guys staying in one place their entire careers,” Holt continued. “I think that’s a really cool thing to be able to say, especially in a place like Boston.
“Bogaerts got signed as a 16 year old from Aruba … he’s won two World Series. He’s already taken a hometown discount. He’s played short every single day for you for the last eight years, nine years. To me, he’s kinda the face of the team,” Holt said.
You’ve usually been able to pencil in Bogaerts and Devers on the left side of the Red Sox infield over the past several years. And the 25-year-old Devers has looked up to the grizzled 29-year-old veteran the whole way, Holt explained.
“I believe Devers is who he is because of Bogaerts,” he said. “Devers would’ve been great anywhere, but I feel like the relationship he has with Bogaerts and getting to watch Bogaerts every single day, post up and play hurt, grind at bats, whenever you don’t feel like playing Bogaerts is in there, I feel like it’s made Devers the type of player he is.
“For me, that’s going to be a tough one if Bogey leaves. That’s going to be a tough one for me.”
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