The Boston Red Sox sent shockwaves through the baseball world over the weekend when they traded superstar slugger Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for four players.
It was a move that felt all too familiar to the Boston faithful, which has watched their organization part ways with stars Xander Bogaerts (which turned out to be a good move) and Mookie Betts (which turned out to be a very, very bad move).
Jim Bowden, who worked as the general manager for the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals, believes the Red Sox’ latest big move will be remembered similar to their highly criticized Betts trade.
“It can’t happen. This is egregious,” Bowden said Monday on the Foul Territory show. “The ego affects the progress of mankind, it always has. An ego got in the way here. Whether it’s [chief baseball officer] Craig Breslow’s ego after Devers wanted to meet with [manager Alex] Cora and [owner] John Henry, and not him—or whether it’s John Henry’s ego upset that he’s paying a guy $300 million that didn’t want to run over and play first base. I don’t know the reasons behind it; they have their own reasons. But no, this is unacceptable.”
The disagreement Bowden is referring to is when Devers refused to move from third base to first when the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman back in February. Instead, Devers made all 73 of his appearances in a Boston uniform this year at designated hitter.
While that dispute didn’t go well in the front office, Bowden believes it didn’t impact Devers’s reputation among players in the clubhouse.
“The players love Rafael Devers. He’s their best player,” Bowden said. “I don’t care if he hurt Breslow or Henry’s feelings for not wanting to do something. Either you make the player do it, and if you’re not going to make him do it, you deal with the consequences.
“But you certainly don’t trade him for this return, under any circumstances.”
Whether it truly was a baseball move or motivated by front office ego like Bowden suggests, the Devers era in Boston has come to an end. He’ll make his San Francisco debut this week as the Giants begin a three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday.
