Trending: Rafael Devers might not be the best player on the Red Sox — and that’s a good thing following $320 Million Contract….

“You don’t move your best player off their position” he loudly and proudly proclaimed.

“Well, they’re going to” I thought to myself.

But because I’m less interesting and more nonconfrontational in public than I am in my online foxhole, the words that actually came out of my mouth were “well, it will be interesting to see what they do.”

Thanks to my underwhelming comment, the conversation tailed off from there in forgettable fashion, and I doubt the guy has thought about it since. But, as evidenced by the words written here, it’s stayed close to the forefront of my mind for several days. And, oddly, not for the initial reasons of reflection. Something else just keeps popping back up in my head.

This guy was so sure that Rafael Devers is the best player on the Sox, and clearly from what I’ve read online, he’s not alone. But the more I think about it, the more I doubt this assertion. Something much more complicated is happening here. In fact, I might go as far to say it’s never been less obvious who the best player on the Red Sox is than right now.

The roster is going thorough a metamorphosis, and that’s a good thing. The infield alone, where Devers plays … err played, transformed from inadequate and incomplete to a compelling combination of anarchy and abundance in a matter of months.

Sure, Devers was the best player not just in the infield, but on the entire Sox roster from the moment Xander Bogaerts joined Don Orsillo in San Diego at the end of 2022. But since that time, several other boom-or-bust guys have emerged, leaving the situation delightfully vague.

Let’s run through the candidates:

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Devers is a fine place to start. He’s the team’s best hitter and the highest paid player in franchise history; and perhaps just as importantly, he’s also shown a penchant to put together quality at-bats in high leverage situations. This is enough to get him annual All-Star appearances and MVP votes, but because other elements of his game don’t add much value, he also has a limited ceiling. This is pretty well illustrated by the fact he’s finished in the top 20 in MVP voting five times, but never in the top ten.

In 2023, Devers led the team in baseball reference WAR (bWAR) for the first and only time in his career, but the number he posted was just 3.5. This was not only the lowest bWAR Devers has posted in any of the last four seasons, but it’s also the lowest bWAR posted by a Red Sox team leader in the metric in a non-Covid shortened season since 1927 (Danny MacFayden).

Looking elsewhere on the roster, Jarren Duran emerged last year and more than doubled the bWAR Devers posted (8.7 to 3.7). But Duran is a tough player to gauge as his 2024 output sextupled the career WAR he had going into last year (1.4). As a result, equilibrium will remain a mystery for at least a few more months. But, in all likelihood, 2024 will be the best year Duran ever has from a statistical point of view.

At the same time tough, it’s worth noting how many opponents talk about the way Duran impacts the game and messes up what they’re trying to do. He’s a fascinating player — one who was the most productive guy on the Sox roster in 2024, but who may never be that again for an individual season. Either way, the trajectory of his career is on the line in 2025.

Then there’s Alex Bregman, who looks poised to take over at third base. In 2019, he put up a bWAR even higher than Duran’s 2024 on his way to finishing second in the MVP voting. But since that time he’s been more of the Devers mold where he’s consistently reliable and rarely otherworldly. He just arrives there with a more balanced set of tools instead of being able to do any one thing as well as Devers bats.

The question now becomes how productive will Bregman be in a Red Sox uniform? It’s a safe bet he’ll be good. But if he falls in love with the green monster and establishes a second career peak, he then enters the conversation as the best player on the roster right now.

Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Speaking of secondary career peaks, what if Trevor Story puts together a healthy season? He’s got so many ways to contribute to a winning team if he can just stay on the field for 150 games. His defense is elite, his baserunning is overlooked as he hasn’t been on the field enough the last two seasons to fully take advantage of the larger bases, and his bat only needs to return to solid form to be a real difference-maker when you combine that with everything else he brings.

But hey, while we’re on the subject of wild predictions, let’s recall what Jonathan Papelbon said about Ceddanne Rafaela earlier this winter.

On one hand, that sounds crazy, but I can at least see the path Papelbon took to get there. Rafaela is outstanding defensively, and he performs his magic in the middle of the diamond. So he, like Story, only needs a solid, not spectacular bat to get his overall production to skyrocket. Much of what holds him back is related to swing decisions, so it’s not impossible to see a world where this leap happens, particularly since he’s only entering his age-23 season.

In other words, I don’t think Papelbon is wrong about Rafaela’s ceiling. It’s just a matter of how far fetched it is that he reaches it.

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Looking to the mound, no pitcher has led the Red Sox in bWAR since Josh Beckett in 2007. But in Garrett Crochet, Boston finally has somebody capable of doing that. Of course, I say capable because he’s never actually done it for a full season.

Devers may feel slighted, or even worry that his legacy is being threatened by recent events. But in reality, the exact opposite might be occurring, because I’d argue that Devers’ best quality as a baseball player isn’t just his bat, but his specific ability to rise to the occasion during big at bats.

It’s not just that he has power to all fields, can work a count, or that he’s smart enough to trap a pitcher into making a mistake. It’s that he’s able to do those things in key situations, like with runners in scoring position, in hostile environments like Yankee Stadium, or during October.

Now here’s where things get trippy. Rafael Devers is less likely to have as many of these key at-bats during his career if he’s the best player on the team, and this is because a team where Devers is the best player probably isn’t a very good one. For Devers to maximize his impact and legacy, he needs to play with better players than him. This will lift the squad in the standings and unlock dozens of at-bats during key moments in September and October where he can make the biggest difference.

Just as Devers can’t post a single season WAR score as high as some other guys on this roster due to his narrower skillset, other guys on the roster can’t strike the fear of God into an opponent the way Devers can from the batters box in a one run game with two on and two out in the postseason.

In short, the best way for Devers to build his legacy isn’t to pile up defensive innings at third base, it’s to pile up hits in October. For the first time in many years, the Red Sox have built a roster that should give him a pretty good opportunity to do that. Now he just needs to accept what comes along with that plan.