There’s Only One Rafael Devers

Jacob Roy at Over the Monster had some pointed advice for the management and ownership of the Boston Red Sox. This was back in January but for some reason the post showed up today in the site’s RSS feed. Not sure what’s up with that.

At any rate, the occasion of the advice was events that transpired, or more pointedly did not transpire, at Fenway Fest.

The first-ever “Fenway Fest,” the spiritual successor to the infamous Winter Weekend, took place on Saturday. Due to “scheduling conflicts,” Rafael Devers, among others, was scratched from the lineup of attendees. Chris Cotillo of MassLive reported on the cancellations and noted that Red Sox officials have privately “expressed a desire to push Devers to do more front-facing outreach”.

Roy’s advice can be seen in the post title, and it’s to leave Rafael Devers alone.

My point is that being a leader doesn’t mean being the most visible. As a former team captain who tried to give the rah-rah inspirational speech, I know it’s not something you can fake. Gerrit Cole would probably agree with me. Connecting with those in the community is similar. Devers doesn’t feel comfortable talking to the media in his second language. Making public appearances and speaking candidly in English probably isn’t a strong suit of his either.

I’ve written before about how I think the Red Sox have made at least one critical mistake with Devers, and I’m pretty sure all of this is the same issue. Back then, my concern was that someone or something appeared to have made Devers stop self-regulating at the plate, and my contention was that this had an impact on his consistency.

At the time, I made it clear that Devers’ self-regulatory behavior was of interest to me because I’m autistic, and we autistic people know all about self-regulation. It’s not that I argue that Devers himself is autistic or otherwise neurodivergent; neurotypicals, too, have self-regulatory behavior. Rather, it’s that something either internal to Devers or external at the organization seemed to have decided that his self-regulatory behavior somehow was unseemly. Or, that’s how it read to me.

Roy’s comments tie into this because the point is that while a player’s baseball bosses legitimately can decide how to play you, they can’t legitimately decide who you are or who you should be as a human being. It’s also, it should be said, likely fairly self-defeating as an organization and a team to do so.

There’s no changing someone’s innate leadership style, and if Devers prefers to be a leader in the background, and a quieter presence when it comes to the public or the press, they should respect that. With the chatter of potentially moving him to DH in favor of Alex Bregman at third, I worry that the organization is trying to transform Devers into another Big Papi. There is only one David Ortiz, and there is only one Rafael Devers, which is as it should be.

Roy’s advice is to leave Devers alone. My advice is the same now as it was one, two, and three years ago: just let him be himself, both on and off the field.