Red Sox’s trade of Rafael Devers actually looks genius, and this one stat proves why originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Boston Red Sox have made a lot of wrong decisions over the past decade, with the Mookie Betts trade obviously being the biggest one.
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The Red Sox didn’t do what was needed in that trade, and as a result, have really suffered from that. It’s unfortunate that Boston made the decisions it did a few years ago, but there’s no going back now.
Some of the other questionable moves the Red Sox have made include trading Rafael Devers.
At the time, Devers was one of the better hitters in Major League Baseball and seemed to be, at worst, the second-best third baseman in the league behind Jose Ramirez.
However, almost a year since that trade, and it looks like it was actually the right one from the Red Sox’s perspective.
“Rafael Devers, 1B, San Francisco Giants: Devers sports the lowest in-zone contact rate in MLB at 68.7%. And while hitters can find success with so much swing-and-miss on strikes — Devers often finds himself near the top of the leaderboard in this category — he is punching out more than ever, walking less than ever and in desperate need of a hot streak to quell the concerns over a contract that runs through 2033,” Jeff Passan wrote.
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I find it tough to say that Devers isn’t a good player anymore, or still even among the elite of the elite.
However, the early returns for him with the San Francisco Giants obviously haven’t been what that organization was hoping for. In the same breath, we have a long history suggesting that Devers is one of the best players in Major League Baseball, and I’d rather go with that rather than a smaller sample size of a year-long struggle.
