From the moment word broke that the Boston Red Sox had made the shocking decision to send All-Star slugger Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, Red Sox Nation had been waiting to hear some sort of explanation from chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. How did this happen? Why did it happen now, amid a five-game winning streak and immediately following a home sweep of the New York Yankees?
Those answers finally arrived on Monday night, when Breslow flew to Seattle to meet with the media ahead of his team's series opener against the Mariners. But unfortunately for Boston fans, it probably won't make the last 48 hours or so any easier to understand.
One thing is abundantly clear: The whispers about a breakdown in the relationship between Devers and the Red Sox were very, very real. According to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, the team felt that Devers' $313.5 million deal came with "responsibilities to do what is right for the team" — responsibilities that, at least in their view, the three-time All-Star wasn't living up to. Breslow himself was even more blunt: “It’s the willingness to step up and sacrifice at times of need and essentially do whatever is necessary to help the team win," he said. “I think that’s the identity, this relentless pursuit of winning, that we’re looking for.”
Which is fair enough, as far as it goes; it's hard to object to that sentiment in the abstract. But this move didn't happen in the abstract. It happened in the real world, after months (if not years) of dysfunction. And while Breslow was more than happy to spend more than 30 minutes throwing Devers under the bus, nowhere in any of his answers was he willing to accept even a shred of responsibility for this failure.
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Craig Breslow, Red Sox refuse to take responsibility for their role in Rafael Devers debacle
And let's be clear: No matter how bad things had or hadn't gotten, any situation in which you find yourself trading away your best hitter, in his prime, midway through a season you entered with legitimate World Series aspirations, that's a failure. Maybe Devers really had become an untenable clubhouse presence. He certainly didn't cover himself in glory with the way he handled his initial shift from third base to DH or the injuries to Alex Bregman and Triston Casas. Rather than taking one for the team, Devers chose to dig in his heels.
But you know who else did the same? Breslow himself, as well as owner John Henry and president Sam Kennedy. It was Breslow who, when word of Boston's interest in Bregman and Nolan Arenado broke over the winter, decided to lie to his star's face, reportedly telling Devers that "such talk was mere media speculation and to pay it no mind." A few weeks later, Bregman was a Red Sox, and Devers was made out to be the bad guy for having a problem with how everything had gone down.
None of which excuses how he behaved, both in his stubbornness about making a position change and in his decision to repeatedly go public with his frustrations. But every relationship is a two-way street: Breslow and Red Sox brass have their own responsibility to make their players feel heard and respected; that's a major part of the job description, after all. Not only did they fail to live up to that responsibility, they seemed to ignore it entirely, believing that their job was to deliver edicts and Devers' job was to follow them no matter what.
Maybe that's true. They are the ones who signed Devers' sizable checks. But it's at best a naive understanding of how to run an organization, and at worst a ruthless one — a notion that jives with other recent reports about how Breslow has tried to remake the Red Sox in his image. Breslow can pretend that he's above it all, that he's a noble and high-minded and simply trying to instill a standard of behavior. In reality, though, it sure sounds like he tried to run roughshod over someone's feelings, and got his own feelings hurt when that didn't go so well. And now the Red Sox have a massive hole in their lineup as a result.