First off, this was a good read and you did a great job listing the key points of this whole saga.

Second, I do think framing was a huge part of the issue here. Devers definitely let the contract status and "face of the franchise" mantle go a bit to his head — I think he saw how beloved Big Papi was and assumed that would come automatically, rather than having to be earned — but the front office absolutely messed things up here. Breslow is known to be a poor communicator, and it really tanked the relationship fast.

All that being said, I still think it was a bad trade. They got a pretty meager return for one of the ~10-15 best hitters in baseball. Sure, they got rid of his money, but this is the Boston Red Sox, and it wasn't a bad contract by any means. I think the front office really fumbled this whole thing.

So on July 22, 2025, Rafael Devers made his first start in the field at 1st base for the Giants and was quoted that he prefers playing in the field to being a full-time DH only. 

Hopefully this move will enliven his bat for the future.

“It keeps me active. It keeps my head out of just thinking about the next at-bat,” Devers said through an interpreter. “I’m the kind of player that likes to be active, likes to be on the field. I’d rather be on the field than be in the cage hitting all the time and just thinking about the next at-bat.”

Rafael Devers debuts at first base for Giants after Red Sox trade

The article ignored the elephant in the room.   DEVERS CAN'T FIELD.   He was the worst 3B in the history of the Red Sox (players with 4 seasons or more at 3B).  His numbers were nearing epic proportions because the accuracy of the errors were highly questionable after 2020.  Baseball reference recorded 52 misplays by Devers in 2022 but he only got credited with 14 errors.  Had the 38 misplays not counted as errors been counted as errors his fielding percentage would have been one of the worst in history.  As it stands, if half of the errors were counted his fielding percentage would have been around .880 which is roughly what fielding percentages were for average 3Bs during the dead ball era when the infields were rough and the ball often wasn't round by the second inning of the game!!! 

THAT'S HOW BAD DEVERS WAS!!!! 

He was an embarrassment for 8 years so trading him was one of the greatest deals of all time for Boston because they got back $260 million and gave up nothing to get it back.  It was a perfect salary dump of a slightly above league average hitter who couldn't field.

MLB fielding isn't a given like many fans seem to think.  If he was the worst of all time at 3B why would ANYONE assume he might be ok at 1B?  He can't scoop, he can't backhand, he can't charge balls and throw accurately, he constantly went after balls he had no business trying to make plays on so he could expand his range and improve his defense metrics.  He missed easy routine ground balls but occasionally made a good play and fans forgot the dozens of mistakes and remembered the ONE good play.  It was brutal to watch Devers vs Arenado, Chapman, Bregman and so many others.  He was a clown on defense and killed the pitching ERAs and WHIPs.  Just think if the 52 balls in 2022 were only 20 like most good 3Bs.  Could we have won many more games with 32 less base runners?  And that's just one season.  He will always be remembered as THE BUTCHER OF BOSTON on defense.

Wait until SF sees his footwork, his imbalance, his inability to scoop, his inability to start double plays from 1B, his slow first step on balls half way down the 1st base line and his poor judgement on balls hit to the hole between 2B and 1B where the pitcher is forced to cover even if the 2B catches it because he can't get back to the base.  Good luck SF you got taken in this trade and all Boston fans should be thanking you for the money that appeared to be wasted by Bloom that was recovered by Breslow.

Nobody should feel sorry for Devers they should feel sorry for Sale and the other pitchers who work the inside corner at the knees to RH hitters.  A major portion of those balls are hit to the 3B and were not fielded from 2017 to 2024.  Bregman shows us what a good 3B can do for a pitching staff.

On 7/23/2025 at 11:41 AM, Charlie Hoke said:

So on July 22, 2025, Rafael Devers made his first start in the field at 1st base for the Giants and was quoted that he prefers playing in the field to being a full-time DH only. 

Hopefully this move will enliven his bat for the future.

“It keeps me active. It keeps my head out of just thinking about the next at-bat,” Devers said through an interpreter. “I’m the kind of player that likes to be active, likes to be on the field. I’d rather be on the field than be in the cage hitting all the time and just thinking about the next at-bat.”

Rafael Devers debuts at first base for Giants after Red Sox trade

To anyone who witnessed Devers at 1B on July 29th, this is why he should have burned his glove.  He has severely limited defensive skills and could easily get hurt and the fact that he can hit baseballs at 100 mph doesn't mean those skills translate to fielding.  They don't as he has proved for 8 seasons at the MLB level.  Buster can humor the guy all he wants but sooner or later he's going to lose his hitting due to defensive injury.  He has no idea how to play 1B as we all saw from his time not knowing what to do at 3B.

I like Devers but he embarrassed himself at 3B and he looks to one up that embarrassment level at 1B.

I can certainly understand the frustration from Sox fans.  I'm pissed at him as well.  But let's clarify something, Devers is hardly a "slightly above average hitter".  He is a top 10 hitter.

If Reddit is to believed 66 of his 141 career errors were throwing errors which sounds about right.  So we are talking about 75 ground ball errors in 9.5 seasons. I will pass on the scoring as that is subjective and hard to quantify.  Still  a lot no doubt but his bat makes up for those.  Of course he won't be great at digging out poor throws but neither have any of our first basemen this season.  How much slower to cover the bag do we expect him to be over the average 1st baseman who probably checks in at 280 pounds?  

Interesting that he didn't commit an error in that game and went 2-5 with an RBI and there is absolutely no reason to believe playing first base will result in injury. 

A salary dump is great if we can believe JH will reinvest these funds but that's probably not going to happen. Instead we got nothing in return so I'll never be on board with this trade.  

Love the discussion--way better than I expected. 

I honestly think Devers was jacked around, no doubt because of Breslow's inept communication skills.  

To be honest, I wanted to keep Devers and his .905 at the DH position.  However, as moonslav pointed out, that's the only position Yoshida can play and he too is a lefty hitter. Thus, from March 27 thru June 15, the Sox were paying $30M + $18M for their DH.   You think JH was not aware of that?  He used to pay top dollar for talent, but right now I think he likes that the Sox are competitive with the 12th ranked payroll.  Thus did both he and Breslow fly to KC to talk to Devers.  

Casas was emphatically not a huge loss--his freaking WAR was -0.9 in 29 games--but his injury gave Breslow a chance to use both Devers and Yoshida.  That made sense.   

However, the simple fact is that the Sox have played way better baseball without Devers than they did with him.  They are 11 games above .500 and the Giants, who were 12 games above .500 on June 11, are now at .500.  

I claim that part of the Sox success is that they finally have a pretty good defense.  Forget the errors and look at the individual players' DWAR"s.  Rafaela and Narvaez are both at or near the top of the heap at CF and C.  Abreu almost is in RF.  Duran is once again a positive outfielder, even in CF.  Anthony has plus DWAR.  Bregman and Story are both solid on the left  side of the infield.  2b and 1b are the weak spots, but they are way better than Campbell and Casas who started there when the season started.   

I cite the above because moonslav likes to remind us that a bad defense has a nasty effect on the pitching.  And guess what?  This pitching staff has a lower team ERA than the 2018 Sox.  They don't miss Devers one bit.  

Oh there is no queston the Sox have improved and the Giants have regressed since the trade, and that is satisfying for sure.  But I'm not looking at the trade for these recent few months, I'm thinking more along the lines of the next several years.  And losing a bat like Rafael Devers will eventually hurt us and again we got nothing in return.