On his first day with the Giants, Rafael Devers finds a whole new reality

New York Times

5 hours ago

One meeting, that's all it took. One meeting with his new San Francisco Giants superiors, and suddenly Rafael Devers no longer was Rafael Diva. Funny how that works when bosses communicate their wishes, and do not simply assume a player with a $313.5 million contract should do whatever they want.
People skills. They might be baseball's new market inefficiency.
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The Boston Red Sox never shared their intentions with Devers when they were trying to sign free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman, prompting Devers to initially balk at becoming a DH and then outright refuse to move to first base.
The Giants related to Devers that only four teams entered Tuesday with a worse OPS at first base, or something to that effect. And voila! There was Devers, all smiles at his introductory news conference, saying, 'I am here to play wherever they want me to play.'
Including first base, where he took grounders before his Giants debut.
'I don't think it's going to be too difficult for him,' Giants manager Bob Melvin said. 'More than anything, the fact he hasn't played in the field this year, we have to take our time working him in. It's a new position. We'll take it day to day.'
Devers is not above reproach for refusing to do the same for the Red Sox, no matter how much he believes they slighted him. But here's rooting for this trade to work out for Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey, and not simply because he appears to have a better feel for players than Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. Or even his predecessor, Farhan Zaidi, who made the same mistake with Brandon Crawford that Breslow did with Devers, failing to inform his incumbent shortstop that he was agreeing to terms with another, Carlos Correa.

This deal is a referendum on teams that define players more as 'dudes' – Posey's word – than 'assets.' A referendum on all the other fancy terms executives use, from flexibility to sustainability to efficiency, while hedging their bets and operating out of fear. A referendum on absorbing contracts that might not age well to do what every team should be trying to do – win.
Devers' remaining $255 million or so over the next eight-plus years isn't as onerous as it might appear. Not when accounting for the approximately $32 million the Giants offloaded in the deal by including right-hander Jordan Hicks. And not when Vladimir Guerrero just signed a 14-year, $500 million extension that will begin next season when he is 27, one year younger than Devers is now. Guerrero's career OPS+ is 136. Devers' is 129.
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Yet, the opinion of a number of rival executives, as related by The Athletic's Britt Ghiroli, is that the Red Sox all but pulled a fast one on the Giants.
'Freeing up $250 million AND getting some nice young talent in return is a great deal for them in a vacuum,' one exec said.
'In a few years I think this trade will be lauded,' another opined.
Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Devers' questionable conditioning and lack of athleticism will cause him to decline faster than most. Perhaps two of the four players the Red Sox acquired, left-hander Kyle Harrison and 2024 first rounder James Tibbs III, will develop into a quality starting pitcher and productive outfielder, respectively.
But once upon a time, before teams became obsessed with projections and modeling, the most effective way to evaluate a trade was by asking the question: Who got the best player in the deal?
Without question, the best player in this deal is Devers, for this season and likely several beyond. And all those in the industry questioning Posey's bold move need to acknowledge that the Giants are operating in unique circumstances, not a vacuum.
The Giants in recent years repeatedly were rejected by top sluggers, from Giancarlo Stanton to Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge to Shohei Ohtani. Citing medical concerns, they backed out of a deal on a player who was willing to come, Correa. Devers, lacking a no-trade clause (oops!), could not reject them. So paying a premium for him, if that's what it even was, made more sense for the Giants than it did for other clubs.
Obviously, not all teams are willing or able to make the same type of commitments as the Giants, who within the last 10 months also retained third baseman Matt Chapman for $151 million and signed free-agent shortstop Willy Adames for $182 million. And let's not ignore reality. Posey, who became president of baseball operations last September, likely will learn the same hard lessons that scar many of his peers: Big deals often do not work out.
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Yet, too often in this sport, teams in markets large and small hedge their bets, playing for tomorrow. Posey, who helped the Giants win three World Series as a player, is having none of it.
In an interview earlier this month with the San Francisco Standard's Tim Kawakami, Posey all but signaled his approach to trading season, saying he 'loved' the Giants' 2011 acquisition of outfielder Carlos Beltrán, a rental, for right-hander Zack Wheeler, then a top 100 prospect.
The move didn't work out. The Giants failed to make the playoffs that season. Wheeler, after overcoming a series of injuries, including Tommy John surgery, became one of the top pitchers in the game. But Posey, then the Giants' catcher, appreciated, 'the leader of our operation saying, 'Believe in you guys.''
The acquisition of Devers sends the same message, addressing the biggest need of a team that entered Tuesday third in the majors in ERA but only 14th in runs per game. Breslow, of course, believes in his team, too, as he made clear in his own news conference Monday. He indicated he would be active at the deadline, trying to replace some of the offense he lost with Devers. But of course, he never should have lost Devers in the first place.
Breslow took responsibility for the breakdown in communication with his biggest star, saying, 'I absolutely need to have the humility to think back on the interactions and figure out what I could have done better.' But he also said the outcome might not have turned out differently, and portrayed Devers as a potentially negative influence on the team's young players.
'As we think about the identity, culture and environment that is created by great teams, there was something amiss here,' Breslow said. 'It was something we needed to act decisively to course-correct.'
Well, the Red Sox's pattern of messy divorces with star players also is a threat to their identity, culture and environment, one that should give Roman Anthony and Co. pause when the team comes calling with extensions.
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Breslow, like Posey, is a former player, a pitcher who spent 12 seasons in the majors from 2005 to '17. But while Posey draws praise from Giants players for his presence and leadership, Breslow is perceived by many inside and outside the Red Sox organization as remote, almost robotic.
'Alignment' – that was the fancy word Breslow and Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy kept using Monday to describe what was missing with Devers. Posey spoke in much plainer terms Tuesday when describing Devers as a 'dude' and saying the qualities of such a player 'are not something you can quantify.'
Introductory news conferences are always cause for celebration, and carry only so much weight. But the difference in Devers, who often shunned the media during his final months in Boston, was unmistakable. He laughed. He joked. He referenced Giants legend Barry Bonds sitting in the front row and cracked, 'Just looking at him, my game has improved a lot.'
Funny how quickly the Giants turned Rafael Diva into Rafael Devers again.
(Top photo of Rafael Devers: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)