Rafael Devers Should Want To Play First Base
He would instantly be more valuable if he takes the Red Sox up on their request — and he might hit better, too.
Some early-season MLB drama came out of Boston last week, when the Red Sox’s designated hitter (and highest-paid player) Rafael Devers was asked by chief baseball officer Craig Breslow if he could play first base in the wake of Triston Casas suffering a season-ending knee injury. Devers, who was moved to DH from third base after Boston signed Alex Bregman, refused — saying he had essentially been told he wouldn’t need to play the field this season, and that he now feels the Red Sox are going back on that promise.
“I know I’m a ballplayer,” Devers said, via translator, to Alex Speier of the The Boston Globe. “But at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there. 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.”
On the one hand, I can appreciate the sentiment from Devers, particularly since he hasn’t played a single MLB game at first base in his nine-year career to date. (Nor did he play 1B in the minors, either.) The injury to Casas, the former first-round pick whom the Sox were hoping would return to the type of season he’d had in 2023 (2.0 Wins Above Replacement) after an injury-marred 2024, was certainly unfortunate. But regardless of what you might hear on WEEI, it’s not exactly fair to ask Devers to bear the brunt of that development by picking up a new position in the middle of the season — even if he is being paid $27 million to help bring the Red Sox another championship.
That being said, there’s a good case to be made that the position switch could be in Devers’ best interest anyway, in addition to that of the Red Sox.
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