Flavin Media

This live back-and-forth between Cora and Devers today certainly came out of left field—pun intended. Regardless, let’s take away what we can from Devers’ mindset right now.

Devers is definitely not a leader: He himself has expressed his desire to let others lead by example. However, this recent situation emphasizes that reality tenfold, as his attitude today was without restraint and set in its ways.

Devers feels the field preserves the bulk of his value: You can’t tell anyone this feud from Devers isn’t at least somewhat due to making sure he’s considered among the best players in the league. His stats are identical at the plate whether he plays in the field or not, so it’s not some feel thing either—it’s about being seen as a complete player.

Don’t rule out a trade of Devers: Devers was as honest as they come about a potential trade out of Boston—not denying the possibility and even somewhat inviting it. You can argue whether it would be an illogical move or not, but the player wants to put himself above the team and isn’t shutting down trade talk, so anything is on the table.

Certainly a lot of buzz around the team as a whole, and this does beat obsessing over trades for analytics magnets or signings of pitchers DFA’d yesterday. Regardless of whether Devers was promised a long-term stay at 3B by prior management, his response to a strengthened team and positional competition has been surprising in the wrong way.