I've actually been impressed with one area of Rafael's defense. His range has been plus. He also has a strong arm, but it needs a lot of work with accuracy.
He has 20 errors this year, and the next guy has 14. He's played less innings than seven 3Bmen, so it's even worse than it looks. I did anticipate a learning curve with his defense, and we can see we're in the midst of it now.
I did, however, expect his bat to outweigh the negative on defense. I knew he might struggle, at times, but I didn't expect a .721 OPS in August.
.721 is not bad at all for someone his age, and I'm not complaining. I think he'll turn into a great ML hitter real soon. My position now is that his bat is really not making up for his inaccurate arm, but overall, I'd say he is not a negative. He does have a +0.8 WAR, which indicates, he's a plus.
I know when you're trying to win a ring, you look to your weaker areas, but weaker does not mean weak. I think 2B has been our weakest position so far, and hopefully Kinsler's return will fix that. His return might also allow Holt and Nunez to play 3B more often.
It was never an ideal situation, but I think Devers has been okay.