Nico Harrison's Clone
The Red Sox traded away a superstar player, just like some other organization we all know.
It only took a little over four months for another professional sports organization to make a baffling trade decision mid-season.
On Sunday afternoon — in the middle of the final round of the U.S. Open, no less — it was reported by multiple sources that the Boston Red Sox were trading away star third baseman/designated hitter Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants.
It’s an epidemic. First, there was Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison shipping away superstar Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers for a return that, while including another star in Anthony Davis, was lackluster at best given Dončić’s proven capabilities. Then, there’s the Devers deal, which similarly shocked the baseball world to its core.
The Red Sox’s gripes with Devers over the past several months have been well documented. Ever since they signed Alex Bregman late in spring training to take over third base duties, you could cut the tension within the organization with a knife. Devers, the team’s longtime third baseman, didn’t want to relinquish his fielding duties, despite the fact that Bregman was far and away the better defender. As such, Devers voluntarily sat out most of spring training, making the transition to the regular season all the harder. He had an abysmal start to the season but has since turned a corner and was slashing .272/.401/.504 (.905 OPS) prior to the trade on Sunday afternoon.
Just like the Dončić trade, it’s the timing of the transaction that has everybody scratching their heads. Boston’s struggles to start the 2025 season had put them in an early hole, but a hot last couple of weeks, including a sweep of the rival Yankees over the weekend, had propelled them back over .500. Things were appearing to be on the rise. Then, bang. Devers was gone, and the air had been sucked out of the room.
But why? Why trade the franchise cornerstone and sole remaining member of the 2018 team that won the World Series? What’s the upside?
Well, the main benefit from a Red Sox perspective is the offloading of a massive contract. Devers signed a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension back in January 2023 that, at the time, was viewed as a step in the right direction by Boston’s front office, which had a bad habit of shipping away franchise-altering players, like Mookie Betts, to slim down the payroll. It appears that bad habits die hard, though, and the Red Sox seem to have facilitated a trade for that very reason once again, as the Giants absorbed the remaining money left on the contract.
Before going any further, I need to clarify something. This piece is not about Rafael Devers. No, this piece is about Craig Breslow and Sam Kennedy.
Breslow is Boston’s chief baseball officer and the man in charge of player personnel, while Kennedy is the president and CEO. These two (mostly Breslow), as the headline suggests, are Nico Harrison’s clones. On Monday afternoon, Breslow and Kennedy held a joint press conference to address the Devers trade. And just like the press conference that Harrison put on the day following Dončić’s departure to Los Angeles, this meeting with the media was an abject disaster. So, from here on out, I’m going to sprinkle in some words of wisdom (sarcastic) from Breslow and Kennedy.
Here’s what Kennedy had to say after he was asked why the Red Sox keep trading generational talents like Betts and Devers:
