Alex Cora finally addresses Red Sox's mistake that led to Rafael Devers trade

Alex Cora offered a mixed bag of thoughts when discussing the Rafael Devers trade with the "Section 10" podcast. He said the team could have talked more to Devers ahead of bringing in Alex Bregman (who was thought to possibly take reps at second base) to open spring training “and let him know, hey, there’s a lot of guys out there, you never know what can happen”.

As an organization, Cora suggested Boston didn’t manage the situation as well as it should have, but he was quick to point out that the team had to move on and quickly in order to “survive the season.” He added, the team made its decision “for the benefit of everybody.”

Cora appears to have mixed feelings about the circumstances of Devers’ exit. He didn’t say he was upset about the transaction, and he even uttered the words "no regrets." But he did note that he likes the player and said that he’ll have a great career in San Francisco.

Yet, the problem that ultimately came from Devers’ unwillingness to bend to the team’s evolving needs put the Sox’s manager in a bind. Cora is a leader who prioritizes flexibility and movement, and Raffy offered the opposite of that aim in his final months suiting up in a Boston uniform.

The trade shed Boston’s best bat in return for a clubhouse shift

It remains to be seen if this move will come to haunt Craig Breslow. Devers is a ‘giant’ of a hitter, and his late season surge came a little too late to propel San Francisco into the postseason. Raffy will almost certainly continue to mash the ball, and his willingness to play first on the West Coast suggests that a different approach from management may have yielded the result the organization was after with their cornerstone slugger.

If Boston had approached their $300 million man earnestly during the front office’s pursuit of Bregman, things may have worked out differently. Bregman might have locked down the third base job with little fuss and Devers might have willingly taken on work at the hot corner on off days (or when Bregman went down for two months) and mixed in at first while doing most of his damage to opposing pitchers as the team’s juggernaut DH.

The postseason might have played out quite differently had the team been able to reconcile Devers’ frustrations as a professional outfit and retained his power bat in the lineup. As it stands, the team is moving on, and Cora is looking eagerly to the future even without his longtime power righty on the team.