Tomase: Much to unpack as Sox finally do the right thing with Devers originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
They had to do it.
The Red Sox absolutely, positively, we’ll-turn-this-car-around-right-now had to sign Rafael Devers. They could not watch another homegrown star leave. They could not sell a disgruntled fanbase on acquiring more prospects. They could not bookend this winter by losing Xander Bogaerts in free agency and trading Devers.
So they chose the only option available to a franchise that had backed itself into an existential corner and paid the man.
Red Sox players react to Devers’ reported contract extension
The 11-year, $331 million extension that Devers will sign — barring any Carlos Correa-style revelations in his physical — is a long-term win for the player and at least a short-term one for the team. With contracts soaring to heights that would’ve made Icarus wish he had beeswaxed a few more feathers to his undercarriage, the Red Sox were never going to land Devers for anything less than market value.
He might’ve scored $400 million next offseason, but he left nothing to chance. The Red Sox made him the offer he always believed he was worth, and so he took it. Not even a year after being told the team viewed him like Atlanta’s Matt Olson, Devers nearly doubled that $168 million deal. He won.
The Red Sox? They stanched the bleeding of a miserable offseason, but retaining him doesn’t actually make them any better in 2023. It just keeps them from getting a hell of a lot worse.
It does at least lower the heat on owner John Henry, who was heckled and booed at his own ballpark during Monday’s NHL Winter Classic, and it suggests the chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has it in him to extend beyond his perception of a player’s value to strike a deal.
When the news broke, I had three immediate thoughts:
1. Bloom needed to show he could negotiate a contract of this magnitude. The Red Sox are generally viewed as a bottom-10 team in terms of talent, and if Bloom’s still calling the shots next winter, he’ll have the opportunity to pursue a generational talent like Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani. He has joked in the past that he’s aware numbers as big as 300 million exist. At least now he has proven it. The Red Sox cannot afford a repeat of this winter’s near misses.
2. This is Devers’ team now. Unless you’re Derek Jeter, most young players become the face of a franchise in stages. It took Xander Bogaerts six years to get there, from youngster…