The Boston Red Sox capped their offseason with the acquisition of all-star third baseman Alex Bregman, an exceptional defensive player. With the addition of Bregman, the Red Sox can move star Rafael Devers from defense to DH. Devers has not performed well in defense, but is upset about being moved.
The Red Sox contract with Bregman signed on February 15 is questionable. Bregman is set to make 40 million dollars for the next three years in Boston. Breagman is a great player, but he has had a declining on base percentage over the last few years. He still has a low strikeout percentage, which leads people to believe that he can reverse this trend. The bigger problem is that after every year he has the option to opt out of the contract for any reason.
Current opinions about Alex Breagman in Boston are that he is a great addition to the club, and that the city is happy to have him. But this wasn’t always the case. Current SLHS teacher and Red Sox fan Nathan Tashjy said “I used to hate him but now he’s like my best friend.” This is because the Astros are a consistent rival with the Red Sox, especially since the cheating scandal which Breagman was a huge part of. Personally as a Red Sox fan I am excited to have him here as long as he leaves the trash cans at home.
This is a great thing for the team and ownership, because this is the first time in the last few years arguably since the Mookie Betts trade that they have spent money trying to be a competitive team. The ownership has played like a cheap team without money while simultaneously being one of the richest teams in the league. But this is the first time that they have spent prospects and money trading for pieces like Breagman, Chapman, and Crochet in order to win this season and not in the future.
Something that Breagman has that can be very important for this young team full of untested prospects. He has so much postseason experience and success. If the Red Sox make the postseason, and that is not something unreasonable to say, they will need people who can be calm in a postseason environment. Say what you will about the Astros but one thing they do is win. Bregman has won two World Series titles. Depending on who you ask it’s one and a half because they cheated on the first one. But still, Breagman knows how to play in October.
There’s just one problem with Bregman. He plays third base. Unfortunately, there’s a man that recently started an eight-year contract to play third base for the Red Sox. Refael Devers was signed out of the Dominican Republic when he was sixteen years old. He signed a ten-year contract worth 313 million dollars. In that contract, it says that he plays third base. The Red Sox want to play Devers at DH so they can get rid of some money by trading Masataka Yoshida. They could put Bregman at third and play some of their young prospects like Kritian Campbell, Roman Anthony, or Marcelo Mayer.
Davers then had a press conference where he was averse to the idea of playing DH. This is understandable. He doesn’t want to abandon the position that he has worked for his whole life. He is a 300-million-dollar superstar. Keeping him happy makes the team better. Not to mention his best friend Xander Bogaerts saw his replacement signed in front of him right before he was traded. Rafael Devers loves Boston. He doesn’t want to play anywhere else. He wants to be the Third baseman for the Red Sox. It also doesn’t help to calm down the situation when the reporter at the back of the press conference asks for his weight in the middle of a tense conversation about who is going to play. Rafael Devers is paid to hit baseballs and regardless of his weight, he is going to do that.
Not saying that the team isn’t better with Devers at DH. It absolutely is but you can’t tell that to your best player the week before spring training. This was talked about gracefully by Alex Corra during his own Press conference. When asked about Devers he said that “He has a lot of pride. We know that he feels like he’s a third baseman and he’s going to work out as a third baseman and then we are going to make decisions accordingly.” Corra tried his best to make the decisions about the Red Sox outright saying: “But I think here it’s not about Breagman, or Devers, or Corra. It’s about the Red Sox.” Corra knows better than anyone being the team’s manager that the new stars coming through the organization need to get playing time. But he also knows that he needs to make the best decision for everyone.
But regardless of how important Devers is to the team he is a terrible defender. He is disgusting at third base. Here’s how bad he is. Defensive runs saved is a statistic that roughly calculates how many runs a player saves or loses during a season. In 2024 he was worth negative nine defensive runs saved! He is the worst defender in the AL east.
Importantly this is a possibly permanent decision. Former MLB players have talked about how hard it can be for a player to switch back to playing in the field after being a DH. The pregame routine is different, the mindset is different and it’s just harder to get back into playing a position in the field after you spent a few seasons consistently playing DH. This decision might have bad implications on the giant contract signed by Devers that was supposed to keep him in Boston for his whole career. The city of Boston needs Devers to perform.
