Red Sox's Rafael Devers Failures Magnified By Alex Bregman's Departure

Remember those two months where the Boston Red Sox had Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers in the lineup?

Devers and Bregman played together from opening day on March 27 until May 24, when Bregman hurt his quad against the Baltimore Orioles. Devers walked off the Orioles the next day, when Red Sox fans learned that Bregman's injury would keep him out a while.

When Bregman came off the injured list, Devers played for the San Francisco Giants. And on Saturday, Bregman's departure for the Chicago Cubs brought back all the negative emotions for Red Sox fans who still couldn't believe the way the Devers situation played out.

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Was it worth it?

The Red Sox alienated Devers first and foremost by reassuring him all throughout the last offseason that he wouldn't lose his third base position. They were acting as if Bregman would play second base for them -- until they checked their computer models upon acquiring him and saw that their "ideal" lineup was with Bregman at third, Devers at designated hitter, and Kristian Campbell at second base.

It was hardly Bregman's fault that the Red Sox mismanaged things from that point forward. Asking Devers to play first base when Triston Casas' knee ligament ruptured wasn't unreasonable, except for the fact that they'd already enraged Devers once.

He said it himself: He couldn't be so accommodating as to change positions a second time. So the Red Sox traded the player they'd given the biggest contract in franchise history, just to lose a bidding war for his replacement.

This whole series of failures goes back even further, to the Red Sox getting rid of Mookie Betts because they weren't willing to meet his price. If Betts were still around, Devers might not have been the player to get Boston's first $300 million contract.

Clearly, it wasn't a responsibility he and the Red Sox agreed upon. Devers just wanted to get paid handsomely to crush baseballs, but Boston thought paying him that money made him an automatic face of the franchise and leader in the clubhouse.

But if your were going to trade Devers, the No. 1 thing you could not do was allow Bregman to walk. That's just what the Red Sox did, because they weren't willing to pay the price Bregman knew he could ask from them with all of that newfound leverage.

Saturday night has a high probability of becoming a moment of reckoning in Red Sox history. Devers and Bregman meeting up in the National League playoffs next year would just be the cherry on top of the humiliation sundae.

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