Rafael Devers To Start Work At First Base With Giants

Mike – Cause and effect.

If the Red Sox didn’t do Devers dirty, he never would have been traded.

Wait – Or they could have platooned Raffy at first base since the start of the season, which would have made him happy because he enjoys playing in the field.

Absolutely nobody is surprised the Giants in 48 hours have already accomplished what the Red Sox were too incompetent to accomplish.

Arm – Raffy is a super chill guy that will go along with anything asked of him.

Just don’t do him dirty, it’s as simple as that.

kc – Well, yes and no.

Ownership never intended for Raffy to play out the entire contract in a Red Sox uniform. Raffy was just a stopgap until Mayer and Anthony (and Teel) arrived.

Everyone knew it was an overpay at the time, and there was no way they were gonna give that amount of money to a DH. Therefore the plan all along was to trade Raffy eventually, which is why the Sox refused to give him a no trade clause.

So yes Breslow wanted Raffy gone, but ownership also wanted to get out from under that contract.

kc – They won’t unload Bregman unless they are more than 6 games out of the WC at the deadline.

They really need his bat right now, without Raffy the Sox have scored a total of just 2 runs on just 6 hits in 18 innings with 22 strikeouts.

lf – I do agree with you on trading your best player when they had finally started to play well.

As reserved and professional as the players were about this trade, they still admitted they were shocked he got traded right when they were playing their best ball.

Uncle – Something tells me you’ve already seen articles like this one detailing the chain of events, but in case you didn’t ….

blogs.fangraphs.com/the-red-sox-are-pulling-the-wr…

“When asked during the Winter Meetings about rumors that Devers might be moved off third, manager Alex Cora said, “I don’t know where that comes from. I haven’t talked to Raffy about that. I have never talked to his agent about that. People talk about his defense. Actually, I thought last year, he did an outstanding job, especially to his left…. And I guarantee you we haven’t had those conversations.” Clearly, the last sentence was true, but there’s no universe in which Cora was unaware of how much Devers’ defense hurt the team last season. Maybe his willingness to say something so obviously untrue should have been a sign.

Cora doubled down on those comments just a few weeks later. “Rafael Devers is our third baseman,” he told NESN. “I always envisioned Alex as a Gold Glover second baseman.” Even when Bregman signed, the Red Sox indicated that he would play second base, as a source told ESPN’s Jeff Passan on the day the news of the deal broke.

Then all hell broke loose. Two days after Bregman agreed to his three-year, $120 million contract, with opt outs after either of the first two seasons, Cora and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow did exactly what they’d been saying for months that they wouldn’t do. They asked Devers to move to designated hitter.”

GaSox – Point taken :O)

GaSox – Disagree. Buster was actively pursuing the trade since the Kansas City meetings about a month ago.

Why would he put a time limit on the offer? There’s still 6 months to the trade deadline and 2/3 of MLB teams are still in contention for postseason spots.

It’s not like Buster was prepared to pivot to some other trade opportunity.

Breslow’s comment was just damage control after several players including Duran were upset about the timing of the trade.

Trust me, I know the thinking of the Red Sox front office on the timing.

1) Raffy kills Yankee pitching, wait until the 6 Yankee games have been played

2) Fanbase is very happy and excited about the 5-game win streak, makes it easier for them to accept the trade. Imagine if it was done after a 5-game losing streak, would have been brutal.

3) Fanbase is very happy and excited about the promotion of Roman and the reuniting of the Big Three, makes it easier for them to accept the trade.

4) The start of a long West Coast trip, gives the fans and media time to process the trade with no games at Fenway and the team playing in a different time zone

The timing was 100% calculated on the Red Sox end.

Uncle – Well at least we’ve established that you don’t care about facts. LOL!

Nobody is arguing about Devers being moved off third base, we all knew it needed to be done at some point.

It’s HOW they handled it that was horrific.

Mutual respect and trust is vital in any employee/employer relationship. You seem to disagree about that, which is your right. But I assure you, it’s not the 1970’s anymore ….. you can’t treat employees like crap – especially your best employee – and not expect it to have a negative impact on your business.

You equate a paycheck with loyalty?

Here’s how it goes:

The employer has something the employee wants and needs – a job.

The employee has something the employer wants and needs – the ability to perform well in said job.

End result, the employee/employer relationship is nothing more than two people using each other to get what they want.

Kinda like marriage ;O)

BTW – The Red Sox refusal to give Raffy a no trade clause is clear evidence they didn’t intend to keep Raffy for the life of the contract. I seriously doubt we will EVER see this ownership group hold onto any star player for their entire career.

Mike – Again, signing your name to a contract doesn’t mean you are now the employer’s slave. It doesn’t mean the employer can mistreat you as much as they want and you have to tolerate it.

If some company signs you to a 10-year-contract to be their latex salesman, and then 2 years later they decide they want to get rid of you so they re-assign you to cleaning toilets all day, are you honestly gonna accept that change?

You keep mentioning checks like employees are paid slaves. That’s a very outdated mentality. Employees today demand to be treated with respect. If you as an employer don’t, then you’re gonna have a really really hard time finding new hires and retaining them.

Mike – We will have to agree to disagree.

You see a specific job posted.
You apply for that job.
You sign a contract to get paid for that specific job, which is reflected in the job title on the contract.

If the employer suddenly decides to change your job without even discussing it with you first, there will be problems.

There is absolutely no point in retaining an employee who is unhappy with a job change, even if you legally can. Their performance will likely suck, which benefits nobody.

Did you know in some states like Cali, if your employer changes your job, you can choose to resign and are legally entitled to a large severance.

Employee rights have come a long way since the 1970’s.

Wade – Yeah, typically when a new boss comes in – especially one with zero experience – the first season is an assessment year. They assess what they’ve got, who is strong, who is weak, yadda yadda.

And as the article stated, he did hire an outside consultant to perform an audit.

But i agree with you, changes should have been made last offseason.

And his hands were tied with not only Cora, but plenty of other longtime employees who are favorites of Henry.

Let’s put it this way, people like Kennedy and Cora aren’t leaving the organization as long as Henry is running the show.

And yeah Breslow’s social/people/managerial skills are weak.

I see this so many times in corporate America, people get promoted to management because of their knowledge with total disregard to their lack of managerial skills.

People skills should be a top requirement for any management position.

BTW – Firing the scouting supervisor who badmouthed him was absolutely the right thing to do.