Well, Rafael Devers is gone.
I’m not the biggest baseball fan, but this trade still shocks me.
The Red Sox just swept the New York Yankees at Fenway Park. They had all the momentum, and then—out of nowhere—they trade their best hitter, a guy they signed to a long-term deal back in 2023.
My initial reaction? This felt like something out of the Dallas Mavericks’ playbook with Luka Dončić. Did Red Sox ownership even shop Devers around the league? Or did they just take the first call that came in? Based on the return Boston got, it feels like they didn’t have many suitors—or didn’t try very hard to find them.
I get that there were issues. After the team signed Alex Bregman, Devers didn’t want to give up third base. He eventually slid into the designated hitter role, but then when Boston floated the idea of moving him to first base, it sparked another standoff. Still, you don’t trade one of your stars for peanuts.
No disrespect to Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison, Jose Bello and last year’s first-round Draft pick James Tibbs III, but that’s not exactly a blockbuster return for a guy like Devers. I mean, the Red Sox immediately optioned Harrison to Worcester.
Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox, continues to lose favor with fans. They’ve already traded away Mookie Betts and let Xander Bogaerts walk. Now Devers is the latest homegrown star they’ve moved on from.
Meanwhile, FSG—who also own English Premier League club Liverpool—just paid Bayern Leverkusen nearly $158 million for one player. For years, Liverpool fans have complained that FSG cared more about the Red Sox than their own club. Now, Red Sox fans might start to feel the same in reverse. Every time FSG splashes cash on one of its teams, another seems to suffer.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these are totally unrelated decisions. But when you’re not a popular ownership group, it’s hard to think otherwise.
No one player is bigger than the team. But if you’ve got a big-time player on your roster, you better make sure the return is big-time, too.
