It would be neat — and perhaps too neat — to point to the Boston Red Sox’ trade of disgruntled three-time All-Star Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants in June as the moment the team turned its season around.
On June 15, the Red Sox agreed to deal Devers to the Giants for two pitchers and two prospects, even though Devers was in only the second season of a 10-year, $315 million extension.
The Red Sox were only 37-36 at the time, in part because of drama with Devers, who was frustrated with the team when it moved him from third base to designated hitter before the season. Devers was angered further when the team tried to move him to first base following an injury, which led to a contentious meeting with the front office.
Since Devers — who signed with Boston as a 16-year-old and eventually played on the 2018 World Series championship team — was shipped out, the vibe of the Red Sox has seemingly shifted. Boston has gone 18-13 after the trade, which includes a 10-game winning streak before the All-Star game.
But the brief post-Devers success hasn’t quelled the concerns of every fan when it comes to how the Red Sox are operating.
“Half of Red Sox Nation was viewing the deal through the bigger picture of what ownership has done in the last five years, which is to say they dumped Mookie Betts for money reasons,” said Mike Schur, the "Parks and Recreation" creator who is also a lifelong Boston fan. (For years, Schur wrote under the pseudonym “Ken Tremendous” for the baseball blog Fire Joe Morgan and elsewhere.)
In 2020, Boston traded Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have since won two World Series with him on the team. Betts was the American League MVP in 2018 and also made four All-Star teams while he was in Boston. He was sent to Los Angeles after he rejected a contract offer from the Red Sox.
Even if Devers is not the player Betts is, the decision to trade him clearly echoed the Betts saga to fans.
“Where is the money going, [and] why is it not going to Mookie Betts? Why are we not winning? Why are we not getting quality talent?” Himanshu Patel, a Red Sox fan, told WFXT-TV of Boston outside Fenway Park the day after Devers’ departure.
“You traded away your best player, your highest-paid player, for what I’m calling Big League Chew and a bag of balls,” NBC Sports Boston analyst Trenni Casey said in the wake of the trade. “This is a salary dump, and that should frustrate people.”
Schur cited shortstop Xander Bogaerts’ signing with the San Diego Padres in 2022 after 10 years with the Red Sox as another prime example.
“Their homegrown stars have been repeatedly going somewhere else, and other teams are just paying them more money,” Schur said. “The Red Sox have a big-market advantage in a sport with no cap. They should be paying these guys."
Schur added that there could have been justifiable baseball reasons for the Red Sox to trade Devers, who ranked 83rd in defensive wins above replacement among AL third basemen in 2024. While Boston may have potentially mismanaged Devers’ positional change, the team was also justified in moving him.
Financially, however, the Red Sox are lagging behind their contemporaries.
Boston ranked sixth among MLB teams with $514 million in revenue last season, according to CNBC’s calculations. Boston’s operating income last year was $120 million, according to Forbes.
However, the Red Sox’ payroll is only the 13th-highest in MLB. While calculations vary and are not exact, Boston’s 2025 payroll is roughly 33% to 37% of its 2024 revenue.
The New York Mets, meanwhile, are estimated to be spending 74% of their 2024 revenue on payroll this season.
While Red Sox fans may see an ownership group that’s no longer willing to spend, at least one former executive is encouraging patience.
“You cannot allow a player to talk to the front office or about the front office the way Devers did,” said former Miami Marlins president of baseball operations David Samson, who added Boston’s ownership group (which has won four championships this century) deserves more grace.
“They have shown when it’s time to spend, they’ll spend,” Samson said. “They’ve also shown that they’re smart. I just don’t understand how they don’t get the benefit of the doubt.”
(Samson, it should be noted, oversaw a Marlins organization that routinely traded away homegrown talent because of financial fears — though Miami was and is in a much different revenue sphere from the Red Sox.)
Schur conceded that "the cold, hard economic calculations are not always necessarily a bad thing."
"You want your team to be smart. You don’t want them to overvalue guys," he said. "The problem is they are doing this with their own homegrown players. Like, the economics of this shouldn’t matter anymore when it comes to Mookie Betts.
“The Devers thing was this perfect collision of being smart about economics and also this nagging feeling about the ownership caring when it comes to the long-term stewardship of this team.”
As for the mild success of the team since it traded Devers, Schur is level-headed, pointing to an easier schedule and the small sample size. He also added that he’s the ownership’s dream fan, because he will support the club no matter what.
“But they do have to worry about people who are a little less intense than I am,” Schur said. “Because if you only evaluate guys year-to-year what are you worth, then the franchise gets a little less fun to root for.”
Samson, however, believes Boston will soon reallocate the money it was spending on Devers. He also said it would be “a terrible way to run a business” for the Red Sox to overpay players simply because they can afford to.
“I understand what the fans are saying,” Samson said. “But on the other hand, are Mets fans happy Steve Cohen spends like a drunken soldier? I would say that they won’t be happy if they lose in the first round. But maybe I’m wrong.”
