On Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco, former Red Sox designated hitter Rafael Devers was officially introduced as a member of the Giants - the team he was shockingly traded to on Sunday in exchange for starting pitcher Kyle Harrison, relief pitcher Jordan Hicks, and two minor league players.
It’s been reported that Devers’ unwillingness to change positions at various points this year was the root cause of the 28-year-old being shipped off to the bay. After the three-time All-Star begrudgingly moved from third base to DH during spring training to accommodate the acquisition of Gold Glove third baseman Alex Bregman, he denied two different requests during the regular season to pick the glove back up and help the team at either corner infield spot when injuries occurred to Bregman and Triston Casas.
Even with Devers rounding into form as arguably the best designated hitter in all of baseball over the last two months, Red Sox brass has made it clear in the wake of this trade that a lack of alignment moving forward was ultimately the undoing of a relationship that, contractually, should have continued through the end of the 2033 season.
But on Tuesday in San Francisco, it sounded like organizational alignment was a top priority for Devers moving forward.
“There's a five-time Gold Glover at third base [in Matt Chapman] already - he’s not healthy right now but once he returns, it’s the matter of position,” said Justice delos Santos of The Mercury News. “Have you talked to Buster [Posey] and Bob [Melvin] about potentially playing first base? Do you see yourself more as a designated hitter? And what were those conversations with the Giants brass like regarding your long term position with this team?”
“I'm here to give my 100%,” said Devers through a translator. “I don't put any ‘buts.’ They're the men in charge. I am here to play wherever they want me to play.”
“Do you have a preference, though?” asked Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle. “Do you feel like you are best at a particular position?”
“Like I said before, I am here to play whatever they want me to do, and give out my best,” Devers responded.
NOW you’re open to playing whatever position the team needs you to play? NOW you’re willing to be a team player? Cool, got it.
On Wednesday’s Jones and Keefe, WEEI’s Adam Jones and Rich Keefe told us how they really felt.
“The guy is such an incredible A-hole that you have to respect it,” said Keefe. “You're left with no other options but to respect it. That's the guy who didn't even want to DH, which is just hitting, which is basically all he did before anyway. He kicked and screamed about DH-ing, goes to another team and is like, ‘I'll play wherever they need me.’”
“I love the reporting now,” said Jones. “It's like Pete Abraham, Chris Cotillo - I love the reporting, like, ‘It's not that Devers said he wouldn't play the field.’ Yeah he did, I heard it. He said it through the media. What are you talking about?
“‘It's not that he wouldn't want to play the field, it's that he's upset about how they went about asking him,’ which is such garbage. The idea that he would do it - no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He said on the record he wouldn't do it. So get out of my face with that revisionist history.”
“Yeah, no, the guy didn't want to DH,” said Keefe. “Clearly didn't want to play first base, wasn't gonna go back to third base. He even made the comment of, like, ‘What do they want me to play every position?’ Which is not what they wanted you to do.”
“You hear Manny [Ramirez] with Carrabis yesterday?” Jones asked Keefe. “He's like, ‘Oh, it'd be like asking Aaron Judge to catch.’ It's like - no, not really. They're asking him to play the position he used to play, and/or the opposite corner - which tons of guys do, including Abraham Toro, who's doing it right now.”
“Every player moves positions, except for Devers,” said Keefe. “But now he’s gonna do it with the Giants.”
“You think this makes Devers look better or worse?” asked Jones.
“Worse,” said Keefe. “The whole thing makes him look much worse, but I'm not shocked by it.
“We've talked about it in the past where if you're on a team for a long time and they ask you to do something different, or they reduce your role - I even look at a guy like [Zdeno] Chara, who is the opposite teammate of Devers. But just for this example, at the end of Chara’s career here, they're like, ‘Hey, we need you to take a lesser role.’ And it was like - well, you were the captain and all this stuff. But then he went to the Capitals and took a lesser role. But I think it was, ‘I'm in a different place, I feel like I could do that there.’ Or like a backup quarterback. ‘I don't want to be a backup quarterback here because I started, but I'll be a backup quarterback over there.’ So I get that, but this part is just so comical because - what a mess this has been for months, and how he was adamant that he wouldn't play anywhere else. And now the first day on the job he's like, ‘Well they’re my boss, I’ll go anywhere.’”
The tune may have changed for Devers on Tuesday, but the bat did not.
Devers stayed hot, going 2-5 with an RBI double in his second at bat in a 3-2 loss to the Guardians.
Boston, on the other hand, lost 8-0 on the road in Seattle to snap a six-game winning streak.
Devers will face his former team on Friday when the Giants open a three-game series at Oracle Park against the Red Sox.
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