Report: Red Sox considering position change for three-time All-Star

The Red Sox have held internal discussions regarding the possibility of moving longtime third baseman Rafael Devers across the infield to first base, per a report from MassLive’s Sean McAdam. McAdam goes on to suggest that the club views a trade for third baseman Nolan Arenado as a potential option to fill their vacancy at the hot corner in the event Devers changes positions.

The idea of Devers moving to first has previously been floated by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and The New York Post’s Jon Heyman, though McAdam’s report stands as the first confirmation that a position change for Devers is under consideration within the organization. Previously, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has declined to comment on the possibility of moving Devers off third beyond saying that the club wouldn’t seriously entertain the idea without first discussing it with Devers. That could be a complicating factor in a position change, as Devers’s agent, Nelson Montes de Oca, recently told Alex Speier of The Boston Globe that Devers has no plans to move off the hot corner.

“He is a third baseman,” Montes de Oca told Speier, “and he will continue to play third base and work hard to get better at it. That’s his position, that’s what he likes to play, and that’s what he will be playing.”

Resistance to a position change from Devers’s camp isn’t the only potential obstacle to a move. After all, the Red Sox have an extremely talented incumbent first baseman in Triston Casas, who at just 24 years old remains under team control for four more seasons and has previously expressed interest in signing with Boston on a long-term extension. 

The youngster missed much of the 2024 season due to injury but is a career .250/.357/.473 (125 wRC+) hitter since making his big league debut late in the 2022 season. There’s been speculation this winter that the Red Sox could consider moving on from Casas to land starting pitching, but Breslow was quick to shoot down those rumors. Given that, a move to first base for Devers would require the front office to either reverse their stance on dealing Casas or else park him at DH on a regular basis, pushing Masataka Yoshida (and the three years and $55.6M remaining on his contract) either to the bench or off the roster entirely.

Complicated as a position change for Devers would be, the potential benefits for the club could be substantial. Devers is among the worst fielding third basemen in the sport by most metrics, and a move across the diamond would likely improve the club’s infield defense dramatically. 

In 2024, Devers was worth -9 Defensive Runs Saved and posted a -5 in Statcast’s Fielding Run Value metric. That’s the lowest DRS and tied for the lowest FRV among all qualified (min. 750 innings) third basemen this year. Replacing Devers with an average or even slightly below average glove at third would improve the club’s infield defense considerably, but a position change for Devers would likely be just as motivated by it creating an avenue to improving the club’s offense.

If third base were to be opened by Devers moving to first, that would create an easy place for the Red Sox to add a right-handed bat to the lineup. Adding some thump from the right side has been a priority for Boston dating back to the trade deadline, and the club’s need for a right-handed hitter to add to their offense only grew more pronounced when outfielder Tyler O’Neill hit the open market. 

Most attention on this need has been focused on the outfield given the club’s reported interest in either a reunion with O’Neill or pivoting to a deal with Teoscar Hernandez, but the club’s outfield remains crowded with Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela all in the mix for playing time, along with top prospect Roman Anthony (or veterans Yoshida and Rob Refsnyder), who should be ready to take on a regular role at some point in 2025.

Complicated as that outfield picture already is, it’s easy to see why adding a right-handed bat to the infield could be a preferable, more straightforward option than adding another player to the club’s logjam on the grass. Given that, it’s perhaps no surprise that the team has been connected to both Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and Brewers shortstop Willy Adames in free agency. Both players have expressed an openness to moving to second base (as well as third, in the case of Adames), meaning the addition of either player wouldn’t necessarily require Devers to change positions. With highly-regarded second base prospect Kristian Campbell seemingly in the mix for starts in Boston as soon as Opening Day, it’s easy to see why the Red Sox may prefer to install Bregman or Adames at the hot corner and move Devers to first.

McAdam’s suggestion that Arenado could be a consideration for the Red Sox is the first connection between Boston and the veteran star. Unlike Bregman and Adames, it’s all but unfathomable that a10-time Gold Glove award winner like Arenado would change positions in deference to Devers, meaning a deal for the 33-year-old would certainly require a position change for the younger star. Arenado is also coming off his second consecutive down season offensively. While he was a finalist for the NL MVP award back in 2022, he’s hit just .269/.320/.426 (104 wRC+) in two seasons since then.

That said, Arenado’s defense has remained well above average even if it’s no longer quite as elite as it was during his peak, and that’s allowed him to be a roughly three-win player in each of the past two seasons. While he may no longer offer the same level of impact as Bregman or Adames, the three years and $74M remaining on his contract pales in comparison to the nine-figure sums both free agents are expected to land and would likely do little to impede Boston’s pursuit of other top-of-the-market names like Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes and Blake Snell, especially if a deal involved the Cardinals either retaining some money or taking on a sizable portion of Yoshida’s contract in return. Any deal involving Arenado, of course, would require the veteran’s approval given his full no-trade clause. While the 33-year-old hasn’t requested a trade to this point, both he and the Cardinals appear to be open to parting ways if the right deal comes along given the club’s plans to retool and focus on youth in 2025.