Rafael Devers’ path from Red Sox hero to San Francisco Giant

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The Red Sox’s Rafael Devers rollercoaster, explained, from teenage signing to blockbuster trade.

Rafael Devers, San Francisco Giant.

That wouldn’t have necessarily been stunning to see in the future if a time-traveler had visited you at the end of 2022. After all, it had been only two years since the Boston Red Sox sent superstar Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers in their most-regretted trade of the century. Devers was getting closer to free agency, which would soon usher his All-Star teammate in the infield, Xander Bogaerts, out the door on a plane to San Diego. Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, J.D. Martinez, fellow young gun Andrew Benintendi … all of these 2018 World Series champions were gone from Beantown.

However, the Red Sox decided to keep Devers, inking him to a 10-year, $313.5 million extension at the outset of 2023. Of all those aforementioned players, would they have rather kept the likely future Hall of Famer Betts above all others? Obviously. Still, Devers could seriously rake like few others in the game from the hot corner, and he was young enough that the contract didn’t make the average fan tilt their head in confusion like the Padres’ 11-year deal for a 30-year-old Bogaerts.

Now? He’s gone anyway, having been traded late on Sunday to San Francisco in exchange for pitchers Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison, 2024 first-round pick James Tibbs III, and Rookie ball arm Jose Bello. Most importantly, the Giants are assuming all of the $254.5 million remaining on Devers’ contract, with former MVP/current president of baseball operations Buster Posey taking the kind of big swing that won him three championships as a player. There can be quibbles with some of the Giants’ overall strategy, but the fact that this is indeed a big swing cannot be denied. It’s a jaw-dropper.

But how exactly did Devers and the Red Sox end up in this messy divorce? The rollercoaster ride of this Boston All-Star has had its share of wicked turns over the past dozen years.

August 9, 2013

Devers’ beginnings in Boston date all the way back to their last championship season prior to 2018. While the big-league club led by David Ortiz completed an impressive worst-to-first turnaround from 93 losses in 2012, their amateur scouting department landed one of the best young players on the international market for $1.5 million. Although he was just 16 at the time, Devers was considered the sixth-best international prospect by MLB.com, and he ended up easily surpassing all five of the names in front of him, including future Yankees All-Star Gleyber Torres and White Sox Silver Slugger Eloy Jiménez.

By the end of the following August, Devers had posted a .910 OPS in 70 games of Rookie ball between Boston’s Dominican and Florida complex leagues. In 2015, he was a top-100 MLB prospect for the first time and appearing in the Futures Game showcase that summer in Cincinnati. MLB.com and Baseball America never had him lower than a top-20 prospect for his remaining years of eligibility. Devers was a masher in the making.

August 13, 2017

Technically, Devers made his long-awaited MLB debut on July 25, 2017, going yard the next day off the Seattle Mariners’ Andrew Moore for both his first career hit and homer. But when you’re a budding star for the Red Sox, your first memorable moment probably won’t come to pass until you’ve had a chance to put the hurt on your biggest rival. Boy, did he.

The New York Yankees were in a bit of a renaissance season after a few years of mediocrity, and they were battling Boston for the AL East. The Red Sox had gone through even worse years immediately after their 2013 title, returning to last place for back-to-back campaigns before a division win in Ortiz’s 2016 swan song (Cleveland swept them out of the playoffs). It was just like not-so-old times with the two heavyweights clashing in the Bronx.

Devers got to give New York a taste of what was to come over the next several seasons. Two outs away from a series victory, the Yankee Stadium crowd was silenced when Devers walloped a 102.8-mph pitch from flamethrowing closer Aroldis Chapman into the Red Sox bullpen in left-center field, tying the game. Mere 20-year-olds just don’t do that. But Devers could, and it was the first of 31 career homers against the Yankees (particularly torturing ace Gerrit Cole in the 2020s), delighting Red Sox fans. Boston won in extras and ultimately held won the division over New York, though both fell to a—shall-we-say controversial—Astros team in October.

October 28, 2018

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In 2018, Devers was a member of the best team in Red Sox history, full stop. No one will ever be more memorable than the 2004 curse-breakers, but these Sox were simply a juggernaut. They won 108 games, steamrolled through three other 100-win teams in the playoffs, and won the franchise’s most recent World Series title.

It was tricky for even a talented up-and-comer like Devers to hold down regular playing time amid this loaded lineup, and by the numbers, this was technically his worst season. Nonetheless, hitting 21 homers in 121 games at age-21 isn’t too shabby, and he delivered some key knocks in October. His three-run homer off Justin Verlander put Boston ahead 4-0 in the ALCS Game 5 clincher over the defending champion Astros, and his pinch-hit RBI single in the ninth inning of World Series Game 4 gave the Red Sox a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish en route to a decisive 3-1 advantage over the Dodgers in that Fall Classic. The next day (October 28th), they became champions.

Devers was the last remaining tie to this legendary Boston club.

September 9, 2019

This was perhaps the first warning sign for Devers that the Red Sox were heading in an odd direction with a new decade on the horizon. Less than a year after he hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy with his championship team, the president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was fired. Boston wasn’t nearly as good in a 2019 hangover season—though Devers himself truly broke out with 201 hits, 32 homers, and an AL-best 54 doubles amid a 132 OPS+ campaign—but this was still a strange move.

Dombrowski has a high chance of landing a plaque in Cooperstown one day for his work as an executive for multiple winning organizations, and when the Red Sox hired him in August 2015, they wanted someone willing to pull off title-winning transactions in a way that former GM Ben Cherington seemed hesitant to do (he did capture his own World Series in 2013, albeit with many pieces remaining from the Theo Epstein regime). Cherington had laid the foundation for the young core of Betts, Devers, Benintendi, and company, but Dombrowski was supposed to get them back on track from last place and over the top.

He did exactly that and they fired him anyway.

Was the farm system in a shakier spot than when Dombrowski arrived and were some hefty contracts on the books? Sure, but again, you don’t hire someone like Dombrowski if you don’t want him to do that. He certainly wasn’t someone who would do the following move, which really signaled to Devers that times were a-changin’.

February 10, 2020

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Enough digital and physical ink has been spilled on the infamous Mookie Betts trade that we don’t have the bandwidth to fully relitigate it in an article about another player. All we’ll say is that the 2018 AL MVP Betts was already becoming an elite player in Red Sox history and Boston didn’t want to pay fair value to keep him. Whether it was ownership mandate or not, new baseball head Chaim Bloom sent him (and fellow 2018 champ David Price, more of a salary dump) to the Dodgers for three players who have not even come close to sniffing Mookie’s production.

This quickly became a damaging blow to Boston fans’ goodwill toward an ownership group that had broken the curse and won multiple titles afterward. Now, they were seen as comparative penny-pinchers in a big market. There had been rumors that Mookie simply didn’t want an extension and preferred to test free agency; those were proven wrong when he signed a 12-year extension before even playing his first game in LA. He has won two World Series with the Dodgers since leaving Boston and remains on a Hall of Fame track.

The Red Sox have made the playoffs once since Mookie left and finished in the AL East cellar three times. Before long, other popular players were gone as well, and Devers was the last man standing.

January 11, 2023

When I read “Forever & Devers” from the Red Sox social media team in January 2023, I’m reminded of a 1993 Saturday Night Live sketch with Adam Sandler where his character complains about his now-ex-girlfriend’s definition of “forever.”

To (poorly) paraphrase the Sandman, I guess in Boston, “forever” means a little over two years.

Even in the moment, it was fair for some to assess the Devers extension as a make-good move by Boston ownership to a fanbase that was tired of seeing all their stars leave without much coming in behind them. Devers had demonstrated that his 2019 breakout was the real deal and most recently had posted consecutive All-Star seasons, hitting .287/.355/.530 with 79 doubles, 65 homers, and a 137 OPS+. He had a 1.029 OPS with five dingers during the team’s encouraging 2021 playoff run, when they dispatched the Yankees at Fenway and upset the defending AL champion Rays in the ALDS before losing the pennant to Houston in six games. The Red Sox went back to last place in 2022, but that was through no fault of Devers.

To be clear, while Devers had worked to become at least an acceptable defender at third base by 2022 (-1 Run Value per Statcast), there were serious doubts about him lasting there. A first base or DH role surely beckoned at some point, though Bloom and company did apparently tell him that he was the long-term third baseman.

About that…

September 14, 2023

With the Red Sox heading toward their third last-place season out of the last four years, ownership canned Bloom near the end of 2023. In October, he would be replaced as baseball operations head by Craig Breslow, a former Red Sox reliever from the 2013 champions who had turned to a career in the Cubs’ front office after retirement. Even in Bloom wanted to hold to his supposed word to Devers about third base, now he couldn’t.

The Red Sox could only ascend to .500 from the cellar in 2024, and it was an additional gut-punch to see the oft-injured 2018 ace who they just traded to Atlanta, Chris Sale, recover to win the NL Cy Young Award. Devers just kept hitting with 61 homers and a 133 OPS+ from 2023-24, but his defense at the hot corner once again dipped. It was getting ugly, and with improvements to be made on the roster to make Boston more competitive in 2025, Breslow and company decided to get creative.

February 15, 2025

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It was surprising to see Alex Bregman still sitting on the free agent market as the first players began reporting to spring training in 2025. The 2019 AL MVP runner-up hadn’t approached that level since then, but with a 122 OPS+ from 2020-25, good glovework at third, and an established playoff resume, this was still someone who more teams should have wanted — even if the Astros had decided to move on from their two-time champion.

Knowing that Bregman also had a deserved reputation for peppering the ball all over Fenway Park in road games, the Red Sox decided to capitalize. They didn’t want to sign another $300M+ deal like Devers, but they were happy to give Bregman a three-year contract—with two years of possible player opt-outs—that would at least pay him $35 million in 2025.

It was a smart play by Boston and one that paid immediate dividends, as Bregman looked outstanding through his first 51 games this season before suffering a quad strain, hitting .299/.385/.553 with 17 doubles, 11 homers, a 163 OPS+, and 3.0 rWAR already. He should be back in about a month and ready to keep rolling in this Red Sox lineup … which will now no longer feature Devers due to the lone real complication of Boston signing Bregman in the first place.

February 17, 2025

From others’ reporting, it does not sound as though the Red Sox communicated enough with Devers throughout the process of signing another third baseman in Bregman. There had been some talk earlier in the offseason of Bregman possibly switching to second to accommodate Devers, but with sore shoulders delaying the start of the latter’s spring training anyway, the Red Sox simply played Bregman at third.

Devers initially refused to move to designated hitter to let Bregman play third. Although there was little doubt that the Red Sox were a better overall team with the far-superior defender in Bregman covering the hot corner, it was still understandable that Devers was a touch miffed about the communication process. By mid-spring, he and the team had gone over it enough and he relented, putting away his gloves and committing to mastering the DH spot.

Considering that it was still spring training, it seems like that would’ve been an opportune time to have Devers at least take some grounders at first base, too. The Red Sox had a starter there in Triston Casas, but a little versatility beyond mere DH work never hurt (even Ortiz had a handful of games at first in pre-universal DH interleague play just about every year) and the third-to-first conversion is a well-trodden path in baseball history anyway. That didn’t happen.

I repeat: About that…

May 2, 2025

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Was there any way to foresee that Casas would sustain an ugly collision and be out for the year with knee surgery? Absolutely not.

Was there any way to foresee that Casas might miss at least some time in 2025 after missing several months of 2024 with unsettling rib injuries? Yep. Casas had even struggled the previous year while healthy, so it’s not like he was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in Toronto with an ironclad hold on first.

Just like that, the Red Sox had a long-term absence at first base. But Devers would not be the answer.

May 8, 2025

If you’re a Red Sox fan, it’s entirely fair to be frustrated that Devers would not even try to play first base after the Casas injury, especially when other stars like Bryce Harper have moved positions to accommodate their teams in recent years. But the Red Sox might have shot themselves in the foot by being so forceful about Devers ditching all gloves in spring training. They could have at least given him a couple exhibition games there to get his feet wet in a backup role, just in case. They did not and thus wanted him to learn first on the fly. Given the back-and-forth of the months leading up to this, Devers was annoyed with Breslow.

The situation was awkward enough for principal owner John Henry to fly out to Kansas City and meet with Devers, Breslow, and manager Alex Cora. They called it “a productive conversation” and Devers continued his raking ways as a pure DH, hitting .272/.401/.504 at age-28 with a league-best 56 walks to go with a 155 OPS+ in 73 games. He was well on his way to following in Ortiz’s footsteps as the AL All-Star starter at DH.

June 15, 2025

And he’s gone, with Boston already leaking negative comments about Devers’ responsibility with the wound still open.

It had been a little over a month since Devers had that meeting with team leadership, and it at least seemed like they had come to a détente. His 15th homer of the year and 215th with Boston helped the Red Sox sweep the Yankees over the weekend at Fenway, giving them five wins in their last six games against their rivals and putting them within half a game of a Wild Card spot.

Now without Devers? Well … the Boston optimist’s view is that in the long run, he probably didn’t have the best contract, especially if he was almost exclusively a DH. The Red Sox are staring at a possible four-year playoff absence though, which doesn’t sound like an eternity for many teams, but discounting the strike-shortened 1994, the franchise hasn’t had a drought that long since 1976-85. There have occasionally been fallow years since then, but the team has managed to rebound before long.

The benefit for the Red Sox is that the American League field isn’t deep by any means. FanGraphs has Boston at 31.4-percent playoff odds; it’s far from a stretch of the imagination to think that they could make it to October anyway. They’ll count on their new young core of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony, and Marcelo Mayer to team up with the soon-to-return Bregman, 26-year-old rookie breakout Carlos Narváez, and 2024 All-Star MVP Jarren Duran in continuing to lead a strong offense. Maybe new righty Jordan Hicks will help fortify Boston’s bullpen when he comes off the IL, too, and Kyle Harrison could also lend a hand down the road, too.

Yet 155 OPS+ bats in their twenties don’t grow on trees. Devers has been among the most reliable, dangerous hitters in baseball for this decade. Questionable extension or not, it’s disappointing for many Boston fans to see the once-explosive youngster’s Red Sox career end in the same way that Betts’ did. The baseball leadership side has changed multiple times since Devers signed back in 2013, but the ownership group is the same … and this keeps happening.

That was annoying but acceptable when they were winning titles; now, Henry and Fenway Sports Group (and Breslow, of course) have to prove that they know what they’re doing amid a frustrating time in Boston.