Devers' status looms over Boston's offseason

There isn’t anybody like Shohei Ohtani in baseball. There hasn’t been anybody like him in 100 years in baseball, not since Babe Ruth. Ohtani has the right to become a free agent after next season, and who knows what happens then, and where he might go, and how much he might make, whether he stays with the Angels or not.

And despite that, it is another free agent from next year’s class who, because of his age, track record, and deep ties to a historic franchise with rabid fans, could end up providing the more dramatic storyline.

Rafael Devers is 26 years old, and he's one of the most gifted young hitters the Red Sox have ever had. But it’s more than that with him. Mookie Betts, his old teammate, is gone from Fenway Park, playing for the Dodgers. Xander Bogaerts -- who had played his whole career with Betts before Mookie left, and next to whom Devers had played his whole career --- just signed with the Padres.

Now Devers has the right at free agency after next season. The Red Sox say they will do everything in their power to keep him in Boston with a contract extension, and why not? He is their best player now the way Betts was. He is the centerpiece of their batting order the way David Ortiz once was. Devers was on the field at Dodger Stadium with Betts and Bogaerts when the Red Sox won their last World Series in 2018. The season before last, when the Red Sox came within two victories of going back to the Series -- boy, those were the days at Fenway -- Devers had five home runs and 12 RBIs in 11 postseason games.

That was only 14 months ago. Somehow, Devers feels like the last man standing for the Red Sox. It is another reason why he is holding all the cards. He didn’t hit 62 home runs last season, the way Aaron Judge did for the Yankees. Compared to Judge, his statistics were quite modest in 2022: 27 homers, 88 RBIs and a .295/.358/.521 slash line. But in so many ways, because of where Devers plays and because of the fan base in which he has played since he hit the big leagues in 2017, the Red Sox can’t lose Devers the way the Yankees couldn’t lose Judge.

This is what Alex Cora, someone else the Red Sox better make sure they don’t lose one of these days, told me about Devers on Thursday:

“It’s been fun to see him grow up. His passion for winning, it’s real, and he takes his craft very seriously.”

Red Sox fans take watching Devers very seriously. The rest of the core from that ’18 team, which was the best the Sox ever had and ended up winning 108 regular-season games before going 11-3 in the postseason, is gone. So much has happened lately in Boston that the surprising postseason run the Sox made in ’21 -- before the Astros finally slammed the door in the American League Championship Series -- seems like a distant memory. Betts didn’t get a contract extension before he was traded prior to the 2020 season, and Bogaerts didn’t get an extension before he left as a free agent. And now, more than ever, the spotlight is squarely on Devers.

Devers is Boston’s best player, he is its most popular player and he is four years younger than Judge, who just became captain of the Yankees, and four years younger than Xander Bogaerts, who felt like the de facto captain of the Red Sox. He doesn’t just have a world of talent, he might still get even better with more experience and a little more plate discipline. Again: It all ends up to all the leverage in the world.

Here is something chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe the other day:

“[Extending Devers is] something we very much have wanted to do. We very much continue to hope to be able to extend [him]. We’re going to keep trying and we’re really hopeful we can align.”

The problem is that the stars have now very much aligned for Bloom’s star. Everybody knows how crazy free agency has been in baseball over the past month. Judge signed a record-setting deal with the Yankees, and Bogaerts agreed to an eye-opening 11-year pact with the Padres. Trea Turner, another shortstop, will get even more guaranteed dollars than Bogaerts in his deal with the Phillies. Jacob deGrom left the Mets for his own very big deal, and the Mets turned right around and replaced him with Justin Verlander. Then the Mets got Carlos Correa, after things fell through with the Giants (who took a big swing at Aaron Judge).

Just like that, the Red Sox are officially on the clock with their third baseman. It has been reported that Devers will end negotiations on a new deal at the end of Spring Training. Suddenly, that is a little more than three months away for the Sox and the player known to his fans as Raffy. He’s not a free agent yet. It sure feels as if he is to Red Sox Nation. Their passion for winning is real, too.