Red Sox Twitter Celebrates Rafael Devers’ Reported 11-Year, $331M Contract Extension

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Boston Red Sox fans can breathe a sigh of relief after the team will reportedly agree to a long-term contract with star third baseman Rafael Devers.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan provided the details:

The move drew plenty of reaction:

Devers his coming off another strong season that solidified his value. He had 27 home runs, 88 RBI and a .295/.358/.521 slash line in 141 games. Per Baseball Savant, the 26-year-old finished in the 95th percentile in expected batting average (.282) and in the 94th percentile in expected slugging (.497).

Devers has been a pillar of consistency at the plate since debuting in MLB in 2017. Over that span, he ranks ninth among third basemen in wOBA (.358) and 11th in wRC+ (123).

Especially in the present market, the two-time All-Star stood to collect a significant multiyear contract whenever he signed on the bottom line, the kind of investment Boston has shied away from of late.

On Tuesday, Passan reported Devers and the Red Sox came to terms on a $17.5 million salary for the 2023 season, his final year of team control before he would be eligible for free agency.

The news didn’t provide much comfort for the fanbase, though, because it offered few assurances as to his long-term future in Boston. Mookie Betts got a record $27 million for one year when he and the Red Sox avoided arbitration in 2020, and he got shipped out to the Los Angeles Dodgers weeks later.

The Betts trade augured the organization’s new priorities after having spared no expense to pursue championships in previous seasons. Andrew Benintendi, another homegrown star from the 2018 World Series team, was traded to the Kansas City Royals in 2021. Allowing Xander Bogaerts to walk in free agency came next.

The terms of Bogaerts’ contract with the San Diego Padres ($280 million over 11 years) were eye-popping, and there’s a good chance the deal doesn’t age well. But allowing Bogaerts to hit free agency in the first place arguably reflected the Red Sox’s unwillingness to go above and beyond to keep him.

In December, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom indicated Devers remained a priority for the franchise, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo:

“I’ve said it, and I know we haven’t demonstrated this to the degree that we’ve hoped to, but we believe in building around homegrown talent. You want to do it in the right way. It’s certainly something we want to do as often as we can. Raffy, for sure, is somebody we want to build around. […]

“Obviously, the timing on him is a little different because he’s not a free agent for another year. But he has been somebody that we love and want right at the center of everything we hope to accomplish, obviously in 2023 but more importantly, in the years beyond, because those are the years he’s not under our control. We’re hoping to change that.”

Actions speak louder than words, so those comments probably did little to assuage the fears of Red Sox fans who watched ownership steadily trim payroll.

Re-signing Devers doesn’t mean the free-spending days of the Dave Dombrowski era are back, but it’s a tangible sign of a slightly different approach moving forward.