By all accounts, the Boston Red Sox are not experiencing a positive offseason, at least until Wednesday when reports filtered out about a new contract for Rafael Devers.
Optimism OP4 peaked when word about the third baseman avoiding arbitration and agreeing to a one-year, $17.5 million deal on Tuesday. With 10 days before the deadline to for teams and players to exchange figures ahead of a possible hearing, Tuesday’s news was seen as a positive sign regarding any negotiations.
By late Wednesday afternoon, fans found out in a good way how well negotiations were progressing when reports surfaced about him signing an 11-year deal worth $331 million to remain in Boston where so many others have left in an unsettling offseason for fans and their view of Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom.
It did not appear Bloom and the Red Sox made a significant effort to retain Xander Bogaerts. Those negotiations never seemed to go anywhere and by the first week of December, the stalwart at shortstop was gone to San Diego on an 11-year, $280 million contract.
When it becomes official it will become the 23rd deal of at least 10 years, if you include the deal Carlos Correa may or may not be signing with the Mets (assuming it doesn’t re-worked to put the length under nine years).
Account for total dollars, it would be the sixth-largest extension in baseball history and the highest contract ever agreed to for the Red Sox, who absolutely needed to get this done in some form. His average annual value of $30.09 million will be the 21st highest in baseball history.
The Red Sox have experienced a mostly downward trajectory since Devers hit .385 in the 2018 ALCS to help them get to the World Series and ultimately win their fourth title since ending the 86-year drought with their historic comeback over the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS and subsequent four-game sweep of the Cardinals.
While Devers has produced 108 homers and 359 RBIs over the past four seasons, Boston’s performance has not necessarily matched. The Red Sox stumbled to 84 wins in 2019 when the severely injured Yankees won the AL East, seemed to punt on the 2020 pandemic season and made a surprise run to the ALCS in 2021 before regressing to a 78-win tough to watch team at times in 2022.
And despite Boston’s mixed results in the past two seasons, Devers has continually elevated into an elite player. His 146 extra-base hits (several off Gerrit Cole) are tied for sixth in MLB and goes along with a .287 average and a .885 OPS as a feared left-handed presence at the plate.
He also is up to 333 extra-base hits in the first six seasons, surpassing Ted Williams, and Mookie Betts for the most in team history before the age of 26.
Following the disappointing season, came this offseason when the Red Sox seemingly improved their bullpen by adding the likes of Kenley Jensen and Chris Martin while missing out on any of the notable shortstops to replace Bogaerts. Their biggest expenditure for offense was the five-year, $90 million contract for Japanese star Masataka Yoshida and it seemed like they might endure the will or won’t he speculation that the Yankees endured before re-signing Aaron Judge on a nine-year, $360 million deal.
Being able to retain Devers will not fully change the narrative for the Red Sox, but considering how negative the 2022 regular season and first two months of the offseason were, it beats the alternative, though the argument could be made the Red Sox could have tried to retain Betts on a similar contract.
Betts went the Dodgers after the 2019 season because the Red Sox were fearful of losing him in free agency. While the fear of a free agent departure is valid, it did not seem like they went to the lengths to retain him like with Devers.
Betts signed a 12-year,$365 million extension and the Red Sox were left with little to show for him besides Alex Verdugo, a fact highlighted by them designating Jeter Downs for assignment when Yoshida officially joined the team last month.
Whether retaining Devers and the other moves are enough to move the Red Sox from their fifth last-place finish in the last decade, remain to be seen given the nature of the competitive AL East but this was something that needed to get done in some way whether it was the dead of a balmy winter or the middle of spring training.
