Brock Beauchamp

When asked to move positions, why is there is a natural reluctance? From a team perspective, it seems like an ego issue, but it may be more complex than that. During Spring Training of 2025, Rafael Devers was moved to Designated Hitter to allow newly signed free agent Gold Glove 3rd baseman Alex Bregman to play the Hot Corner.
At the age of 28 and having played regularly at no other position than 3rd base, Rafael Devers balked at becoming a full-time designated hitter. He viewed this as criticism of his defensive ability and initially refused the move to a hitting only role. 
Some designated hitters claim to lose focus by not playing out in the field and perhaps Devers experienced some of the same initially, but he regained his offensive form with his potent bat and had a solid batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage of .272/.401/.504 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs through 72 games with the Red Sox.
In his own words
However, after Red Sox starting 1st baseman, Tristan Casas, went down with a season ending injury in early May, when asked about moving to 1st base, Rafael said,
"I know I'm a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can't expect me to play every single position out there. In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove. I wasn't going to play another position other than DH. Right now, I don't think it would be an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position."
He further clarified,
"Now, they should do their jobs essentially and hit the market and look for another player. I'm not sure why they want me to be an in-between," Devers said. "Next thing you know, someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield. I know the kind of player that I am, and that's where I stand." [1]
Devers wants to be respected as a player and not treated as an injury-fill-in whenever the Sox had someone get hurt. Injuries are a fact of any professional sport, and having experienced injuries while playing 3rd base, Devers is possibly worried about getting injured playing an unfamiliar position and not being as capable initially. 
Protecting himself on Social Media
To a degree, Devers wants to protect his reputation and in this age of social media and ubiquitous recording of every action, Devers is perhaps worried about showing up on a highlight or low light clip showing a bad performance. 
With regards to the mental load on him, Rafael may know himself best and doesn't want to take on learning a new position, while at the same time remaining a topflight hitter.
He also wanted the Red Sox to seek a permanent solution versus the uncertainty of moving him around the diamond and field as circumstances demand. 
Ultimately it is a team that needs to be managed and built into a cohesive whole to win consistently. Rafael Devers in his comments felt that management was treating him like he could be plugged in anywhere without regards to his capabilities or injury risk.
Perhaps the issue could have been defused with a longer-term view from both Rafael and the Red Sox management. Players eventually move along the defensive spectrum right to left as they age and lose athleticism in the field.
Moving down the Defensive Spectrum
The Defensive spectrum idea was introduced by baseball analyst, Bill James in the early 1980s and indicates that defensive skill is more of a premium as you move left to right, and most players move right to left as they age.
Designated hitter – First baseman – Left fielder – Right fielder – Third baseman – Center fielder – Second baseman – Shortstop – Catcher [2]
For Devers, he was moved immediately from 3rd base to Designated hitter and not offered the chance to try any positions in between during Spring Training.
Depth is important for any team and so as the Red Sox planned their depth chart for the season, there should have been anticipation on what to do in the case of injuries and give players reps and opportunities in the Spring to get ready for their roles or potential roles.
No Flexibility
By locking Devers into a DH role, the Red Sox, were essentially hard coding him into that role with no flexibility until something happened.
With the number of moving parts involved in any baseball team from injuries (Alex Bregman went on the IL on May 24), recovery from surgeries (Masataka Yoshida's shoulder is not 100%, thus precluding him from playing in the field and forcing him to DH), slumps, and streaks, a team has to have flexibility to adjust to circumstances.
Contract status also plays a role as teams can't not play the star with the large contract. Devers was always going to be playing; the question was where.
If the Sox had set him more at ease and perhaps told him that he was so valuable and capable that he would always be in the lineup, rather than saying we're moving you to DH because your bat is so much more valuable than any contribution in the field, perhaps he would still be a Red Sox.
What do you think?
 
 

 
Sources
[1] https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45059014/rafael-devers-tells-red-sox-move-first-base (Originally published May 8, 2025, retrieved July 9, 2025)
[2] Defensive spectrum - Wikipedia

Talk Sox Tips & Tricks, Part One: Tables! With this series of blog entries, I'm going to try to cover some of the features of the new site in a few paragraphs. Using the old site, as I'm sure many of you are aware, tables were basically unusable. That has changed! I'll tackle B-Ref tables quickly in this post but you can do similar things with FanGraphs or other sites that use table data (which is how almost all stat sites display their content). First, pop on over to Rafael Dever''s B-Ref page: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/deverra01.shtml
I'm going to grab his 2020-2021 season stats. Just above his stat table, you'll see Share & Export. Click and then select Modify, Share, & Export Table. Boom, you can then select what stats you want to display and which you want to remove. I've removed all seasons except the last two. I also removed team and league because "duh". Then click the big X in the top right of the yellow square and you have your filtered table. Grab that table by moving your cursor to the top left of the table (just to the left of Year in this case) and while holding down the button of your mouse/trackpad, drag toward the bottom right of the table. The table will begin to highlight in yellow as you select the cells. Grab them all and let go of the mouse/trackpad. Then copy what has been selected (control+c on Windows, command+c on macOS). Pop over to Brewer Fanatic, start typing a comment, and paste your content (control+v on Windows, command+v on macOS).
Standard Batting Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards 2017 20 BOS AL 58 240 222 34 63 14 0 10 30 3 1 18 57 .284 .338 .482 .819 112 107 5 0 0 0 3 5/HD   2018 21 BOS AL 121 490 450 59 108 24 0 21 66 5 2 38 121 .240 .298 .433 .731 94 195 9 0 0 2 6 *5/HD   2019 22 BOS AL 156 702 647 129 201 54 4 32 115 8 8 48 119 .311 .361 .555 .916 132 359 8 4 1 2 7 *5/HD6 MVP-12 2020 23 BOS AL 57 248 232 32 61 16 1 11 43 0 0 13 67 .263 .310 .483 .793 107 112 8 3 0 0 0 *5/H   2021 24 BOS AL 156 664 591 101 165 37 1 38 113 5 5 62 143 .279 .352 .538 .890 134 318 13 7 0 4 7 *5/D4H AS,MVP-11,SS 2022 25 BOS AL 141 614 555 84 164 42 1 27 88 3 1 50 114 .295 .358 .521 .879 141 289 14 6 0 3 11 *5/DH AS,MVP-14 2023 26 BOS AL 153 656 580 90 157 34 0 33 100 5 1 62 126 .271 .351 .500 .851 126 290 15 11 0 3 10 *5/DH6 MVP-18,SS 2024 27 BOS AL 111 488 426 80 127 33 5 27 77 2 0 55 115 .298 .377 .589 .966 161 251 10 2 0 5 13 *5/D AS 8 Yrs 953 4102 3703 609 1046 254 12 199 632 31 18 346 862 .282 .347 .519 .866 129 1921 82 33 1 19 57     162 Game Avg. 162 697 629 104 178 43 2 34 107 5 3 59 147 .282 .347 .519 .866 129 327 14 6 0 3 10     Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/20/2024.   Note: you can use this method for most websites and spreadsheet data so whatever table data you have available you need to copy and paste, this method will likely suit your needs.