Controversial Red Sox 12-Time All-Star Rips Team Over Rafael Devers Fiasco

Manny Ramirez played all or part of eight seasons with the Boston Red Sox, from 2001 until the 2008 trade deadline, when he was shipped to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In that period, Ramirez was perhaps the most fearsome right-handed hitter ever to wear the Red Sox uniform.

He was also one of the most controversial and polarizing players the Red Sox ever had. So he spoke from experience when, speaking to MLB insider journalist Hector Gomez on Monday, he expressed sympathy for now-traded slugger Rafael Devers — and tore into the Red Sox front office for what he said was the team’s poor handling of Devers.

Devers in 2023 signed a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension that was intended to keep him in Boston for the rest of his career, and made him the highest-paid player in Red Sox history.

But trouble started brewing this spring when the Red Sox, after signing free agent third baseman Alex Bregman, asked Devers to transition from his spot at third to designated hitter.

Devers at first flatly refused, but eventually relented. But when Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas suffered a season-ending injury in early May, the Red Sox approached Devers about taking up the first base position.

The 28-year-old superstar refused again, saying “they can’t expect me to play every single position out there.”

Even when Red Sox owner John Henry made a flight to Kansas City, where the Red Sox were playing a road game on May 9, to personally appeal to Devers, he was rebuffed by the three-time All-Star.

That appears to have been a red line for the Red Sox, and Devers crossed it. On Sunday, Boston stunned the baseball world by trading Devers to the San Francisco Giants for a package of three pitchers and a top minor league outfield prospect.

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“Devers was humiliated (by the Red Sox),” Ramirez, a 12-time All-Star, said in the Gomez interview, as quoted by NJ Advanced Media. “It’s not about pride or ego. I think the team didn’t respect him or communicate with him properly. I’m sure they didn’t do that to (Roger) Clemens. I can’t imagine the Yankees telling (Aaron) Judge, ‘Now we’re moving you to catcher.'”

But Ramirez also appeared to criticize Devers for apparently shutting himself off from advice offered by former players like Ramirez himself. The Devers situation appeared to cause Ramirez to reflect on his own tumultuous tenure with the Red Sox.

“Devers needed to have people advising him there on the team. I’m telling you because I really wasn’t doing well, and David and Pedro were busting their butts to advise me,” Ramirez told Gomez, referring to his Boston teammates Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz — both, like Ramirez and Devers, natives of the Dominican Republic.

“But I was so messed up that I never let them guide me,” Ramirez continued. “And look at how David Ortiz has come out on top in Boston. He let himself be advised. Most Latinos don’t come out well from the teams.”

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While in Boston, Ramirez was at the center of multiple controversies and disruptive incidents.

Among other episodes, he physically attacked teammate Kevin Youkilis in the Red Sox dugout during a game; he shoved the team’s 64-year-old traveling secretary Jack McCormick, knocking the older man to the ground; and he appeared to simply quit on the team, claiming a knee injury — but when the Red Sox ordered him to undergo an MRI exam, Ramirez could not recall which knee was supposedly injured.

Boston’s then-general manager Dan Duquette signed Ramirez to a free agent contract at the December 2000, winter meetings. At the time, the eight-year, $160 million deal made Ramirez the highest-paid free agent in MLB history, but that record was broken within 24 hours by the 10-year, $250 million deal given by the Texas Rangers to shortstop Alex Rodriguez.

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