By most measures, the Rafael Devers commerce occurred instantly. It got here with out advance discover of his availability, and the Pink Sox reportedly weren’t buying him round. Instantly, it drew comparisons to the Luka Dončić-Anthony Davis commerce within the NBA, as a result of infrequently in our scoops-driven media panorama, the place even the tiniest rumor is handled as forex, does a transaction involving a celebrity catch us unexpectedly.
And but, now that the shock has worn off, buying and selling Devers appears like a logical consequence to the saga that started in March, when the Pink Sox signed Alex Bregman to play third base with out giving the incumbent a heads up. The main points of the following rift have been lined at nice size, at FanGraphs and elsewhere, so I gained’t go into them right here. Loads of the reporting for the reason that commerce has described the state of affairs in Boston as untenable, and the harm accomplished to the connection between Devers and the staff as irreparable. However based mostly on how badly the Pink Sox botched their preliminary response to the battle, after which stored bungling their subsequent makes an attempt at reconciliation, from my perspective, it looks like they didn’t make repairing it a lot of a precedence.
We’ll deal with your questions on the Devers commerce and a lot extra on this week’s FanGraphs mailbag. However first, I’d prefer to remind all of you that whereas anybody can submit a query, this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. In the event you aren’t but a Member and want to hold studying, you’ll be able to join a Membership right here. It’s one of the simplest ways to each expertise the location and assist our workers, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, in case you’d prefer to ask a query for subsequent week’s mailbag, ship me an e mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.