‘About as good as you can get’
Sox wonder what promising young Devers can do for an encore
FORT MYERS — Did Rafael Devers peak at 22 years old?
Devers arrived at spring training on Friday a week late due to spending time with his family in the Dominican Republic for the birth of his second daughter, Rachelese.
“It’s really special,” Devers said about seeing his new daughter.
And just like that, questions around Red Sox camp pivoted to how far Devers can carry an offense that no longer has Mookie Betts at the top of the lineup.
“I don’t feel like I’m a finished product yet,” Devers said. “I want to improve on offense, defense, whatever it is that I can work on every single day because I feel like we always need to keep improving.”
It’s a statement that makes sense given his age, but those in Sox’ camp wonder how much better he could possibly get.
He’s coming off a year as good, if not better than anyone could have imagined. At 22 and in just his second full big league season, he exploded with a league-high 54 doubles, 32 homers, 115 RBIs and a .311 average. He finished 12th in MVP voting.
David Ortiz never played with Devers, having retired a year before Devers made his MLB debut in 2017, but he’s a big fan.
“I don’t need him to do more than what he did last year,” Ortiz said. “His numbers last year were sick.”
Ortiz has been paying attention. Retirement allows him to watch almost every Red Sox game on television.
“It seems like that guy was doing some damage every day,” Ortiz said. “I couldn’t wait for him to come to hit. Because even if he gets himself out, he was fighting. He was hitting a rocket at somebody. It was a pitcher making a nasty pitch on him. It was not a giveaway at-bat at all. I saw more than 250 at-bats coming out of him and bro, I’m telling you, this guy is on another level. That’s how I described him last year.”
Since he first came up in 2017, Devers has expressed confidence. On his first day in the big leagues, he sat in the dugout in Seattle and said he wants to be a great third baseman. He said he knows he’s capable as long as he stays healthy.
He had skipped Triple-A almost completely, lasting just nine games with Pawtucket before he was called up. And he hit well his rookie year, batting .284 with an .819 OPS and 10 homers in 54 games.
In the postseason is when he became even more noticable, hitting two homers in the final two games against the Astros in the American League Division Series.
“True story, his first year they went to play the Marlins,” Ortiz said. “I was sitting right next to Derek Jeter. And I asked Derek, ‘Hey, which one is the player in the lineup that scares you the most?’ And he said, ‘Devers.’ His first year. And I totally agreed with him because he was fearless. That’s when you know that a hitter is going to be dangerous. So what he did last year, it was not surprising to be honest with you. I saw that coming.”
A year ago, the Sox wanted to see him control his swing and strike out less. He listened, lowering his strikeout rate from 25% to 17%. And he did so while hitting the ball harder than all but 6% of major league players based on exit velocity.
Devers knows his defense can be more consistent. A strong defensive game in the final few months of 2019 helped erase a slow start in which he made nine errors in his first 31 games.
“Boy, it’s a good question how much he can improve,” said interim manager Ron Roenicke. “That’s about as good as you can get. I guess he had four really good months of defense so continuing that through the whole season would be good. And then the offensive part, he was as good as you could play offensively. So just being consistent.”
Devers will be delayed in spring training due to his late arrival, but Roenicke said it’s important he’s ready to play on Opening Day and has a faster start than a year ago.
The Red Sox don’t know if he can be any better than he was in 2019. But they don’t think he needs to be.
“If he can get locked in early, it would be huge,” Roenicke said. “And it just makes our lineup so tough if he and (Xander Bogaerts) can do what they do. We know that J.D. Martinez is going to have his same year. You become a deep lineup. Christian Vazquez was a big part last year, keep him going. And then you have a lineup that you’re really tough to navigate through.”
Betts was a “big piece” of the lineup, Devers said, “but I know we have a really good team. We’ll get used to it.”