IS ANYBODY IN SPORTS MORE SELFISH THAN RAFAEL DEVERS AT $313.5 MILLION?
It’s hard to believe the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts and retained Devers, who refuses to play first base despite a serious injury, and he thinks a spring move to designated hitter is more than enough
In his second year after signing a $313.5 million extension, Rafael Devers should play in front of a clubhouse urinal if the Boston Red Sox say so. His contract doesn’t have a clause that determines his position in the lineup. When the front office acquired a third baseman in Alex Bregman, who won a Gold Glove last season, Devers balked when he was asked to be a designated hitter.
And when Triston Casas ruptured a left knee tendon — in the same period when Jarren Duran deals with derogatory road fans after acknowledging a 2022 suicide attempt — the worst ploy Devers can attempt is a refusal to replace Casas at first base. He is a terrible teammate. He makes too much money to be traded. They are stuck with him at Fenway Park, where he can hit but is soul-destroying as an everyday infielder, where he doesn’t accumulate defensive runs.
So what would owner John Henry like to do? Suspend Devers? Let’s see, he traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers because he didn’t want to spend $365 million — and kept Devers at $313.5 milllion? Betts is such a joyous player that he moved from the outfield to shortstop, where he says, “I think the most exciting thing is just to prove everybody wrong. All the people that doubt me, they'll see.”
Devers? He is telling chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to leave him alone.
“I know I’m a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” Devers said through a team translator Thursday. “In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH, so right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”
Of Breslow, a former major-league pitcher, Devers said: “I’m not certain what he has with me. He played ball, and I would like to think that he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy. They put me in this situation, and they told me that they didn’t want to allow me to play any other position. Now, I think they should do their jobs, essentially, and hit the market and look for another player. I’m not sure why they want me to be in-between the way they have been.”
The “in-betweener” is hitting .255 this season with six home runs. David Ortiz is not stopping by to say hello. Devers’ teammates are not pleased with his selfishness in a sensitive workplace. The Red Sox are 20-19 and are best known for a Netflix docuseries when Duran spoke about suicide. All Devers cares about is Breslow acting like a GM trying to fix a lineup. So far, manager Alex Cora has said he’ll keep Devers at DH. This is messy and prime material for Boston talk shows.
“I don’t feel that they stayed true to their word. They told me that I was going to be playing this position, DH, and now they’re going back on that. So I just don’t think they stayed true to their word,” Devers said. “They’ve told me I’m a little hard-headed. And they already asked me to change once, and this time, I don’t think I can be as flexible.”
He thinks he has the support of teammates. He doesn’t. “Here in the clubhouse, thankfully, the relationship that I have with my teammates is great,” Devers said. “I don’t understand some of the decisions that the GM makes. Next thing you know someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield. I think I know the kind of player that I am, and that’s just where I stand.”
At least Jayson Tatum apologized for his poor play against the Knicks. Heading into Game 2 in New York, he has made only 12 of 42 shots — 5 of 20 from beyond the 3-point arc — and committed eight turnovers for the Celtics. “I take full ownership of the way that I've played in this series and can't sugarcoat anything," Tatum said. "I need to be better, and I expect to be a lot better.”
He is trying. Rafael Devers is pouting. Sit him on the bench.
Let him rot until he plays first base.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.