MLB Analyst Defends Red Sox's Rafael Devers: 'You Know How Hard That Was?'

A top Major League Baseball analyst has come to the defense of Boston Red Sox star Rafael Devers as tensions simmer between Devers and team management.

The disagreement, rooted in the Red Sox’s desire to move Devers to first base, has reignited the debate about how to handle a player of Devers’s caliber.

MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds offered his take on the situation on Thursday night during MLB Tonight. Reynolds's perspective is especially poignant here, as he’s a former MLB player himself.

“You can't sit there and take his glove away and say, ‘Never mind,’” Reynolds said.

Devers, a three-time All-Star who signed a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension in 2023, has faced criticism for his defense in the past but has worked diligently to hold his own at the hot corner.

Reynolds highlighted the pride Devers takes in his glove work, noting, “So he's decided to stay loyal to the organization. Glove away. ‘Don't worry about it.’ You know how hard that was for him? How much pride you take in your defense when everybody's saying you can't defend?”

Reynolds also acknowledged Devers’s awareness of the challenge a positional switch entails. “He knows what it took to get to this position,” Reynolds said. “He knows what it's gonna take to be respectable at first base.”

Forcing a $300 million player to change positions (twice), Reynolds argued, isn’t an ideal scenario: “You're not gonna do it. And that means (there were) some hard conversations. To tell a guy who's a $300 million player and (has) been an All-Star … after he's worked his tail off (to improve at third base).”

It’s hard not to sympathize with Reynolds’s take here. On the other hand, Devers—despite his massive salary and importance to the team—isn’t absolved from doing whatever management requires of him, however difficult.

How will this standoff end? Hopefully, Boston sorts through the situation immediately.