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The Boston Red Sox seemed to finally be making some progress in free agency after missing out on a bunch of targets to kick off the 2022 Winter Meetings. They shored up the backend of their bullpen by signing Kenley Jansen, and took an extremely expensive risk when they signed Masataka Yoshida out of Japan to fill in one of their vacant outfield positions.
But everything came crashing down on them when Xander Bogaerts opted to not re-sign with Boston, and instead took a massive 11-year, $280 million deal with the San Diego Padres. The Sox front office has been playing with fire by letting Bogaerts even reach free agency in the first place, and saw their indifference on signing him to an extension before he hit free agency come back to bite them in the butt.
Now Boston is left without direction, seemingly stuck between wanting to build a World Series contender but being too cheap to go out and do it. With Bogaerts being the latest homegrown star to get ostracized by the Red Sox front office, it doesn't paint an extremely rosy picture for their latest homegrown star in Rafael Devers, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him be lowballed next by Boston's penny-pinching front office.
The Red Sox appear set to lowball another superstar of theirs in Rafael Devers
In order to fully understand the situation Boston now finds themselves in with Devers, it's important to understand the precedent that the Red Sox front office, and their ownership as a whole really, have set with their homegrown free agents. You can trace this back to 2014 when star starting pitcher Jon Lester was traded to the Oakland Athletics at the trade deadline because the front office didn't want to extend him.
Lester ended up being pursued by Boston when he hit free agency the ensuing offseason, but ended up signing a six-year, $155 million deal with the Chicago Cubs instead. Losing Lester forced the Red Sox to rebuild their rotation after just winning the World Series back in 2013, which was extremely frustrating for the organization.
More recently, the Red Sox were unwilling to hand Mookie Betts the long-term deal he wanted to ensure he stayed in Boston for the entirety of his career. Betts was inexplicably traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and they couldn't sign him to their 12-year, $365 million extension quicker. Betts has remained one of the top five players in the league throughout his first three seasons with the Dodgers.
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Now the same deal has unfolded with Bogaerts, except they get nothing in return for him. Boston's front office didn't seem to worry about an extension for Bogaerts when he made it clear he was going to opt out his current deal, and while they made a push to sign him once he hit free agency, it was too little too late, and the Padres unsurprisingly blew him out of the water with their offer.
The problem with Bogaerts, and really Betts and Lester too, is that the front office and ownership lowballed these stars before realizing too late that they were actually going to lose them. Bogaerts should have been signed to an extension in spring training of last year. Instead, the Red Sox made the foolish decision to wait until he hit the open market to try to sign him.
And now, they have to do the same old song and dance with Devers, who is entering the last season of arbitration in his current deal. Similar to Bogaerts, Devers should already have been extended by now. Instead, the front office has constantly tried to get him to sign for cheaper than he is worth, and his value only continues to grow. With Bogaerts gone, the Sox need Devers even more than they did at the beginning of this week.
The lowballing has already started, as Devers laughed at a question during the 2022 All-Star break when asked about the deal the Sox offered him prior to the 2022 season. He wants to be paid upwards of $300 million, which is fair considering how he's only 26 years old and has proven he's one of the best hitters in the game.
A long-term deal would have looked a lot nicer last offseason, though, and the same could be said for Bogaerts. Now that Bogaerts is getting $280 million to play until he's 41, Devers is going to see that and increase his asking price. Even if Boston somehow manages to come to an agreement with him here, they will have lost tons of money by putting off the extension by a year.
The Red Sox front office has been bungling extensions for their homegrown stars for years. They just did it again with Bogaerts, and unless they come to their senses soon, they will do the exact same thing with Devers. Unless something wild happens this offseason, don't expect the Red Sox to revert from their lowballing ways to keep their prized third baseman in Devers around for the long-term future.
