The Boston Red Sox earned a win against the Seattle Mariners in their first game after trading away franchise slugger Rafael Devers, but the jury is still out on how the team will recover.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and president Sam Kennedy defended the move on Monday as one that would ultimately help the organization as they could not find a way of fitting Devers into their larger plans or culture.
"In the end it was pretty clear that we couldn't find alignment with (Devers), is the truth," Kennedy said, per Dayn Perry of CBS Sports. "We had a different vision for him going forward than he had, and we couldn't get there."
But the trade surprise has raised questions about what exactly that vision may be and how functional the Red Sox culture is at the moment.
In a detailed report for Yahoo! Sports, Joon Lee suggested there are some cracks in the team's foundation. He reported that the front office has been "losing cohesion" under Breslow and noted that there is a significant rift between executives and manager Alex Cora.
Cora could be growing frustrated with the team's focus on young prospects over established veterans like Devers. According to Lee, the manager wanted to send a clear message about that frustration to Breslow when he had rookie Roman Anthony conduct outfield drills in front of reporters after a misplayed ball.
"Multiple people in the organization noted that under previous regimes, that kind of instruction would've taken place behind closed doors," Lee wrote. "This time, it felt like a message from the coaching staff to the front office. One team source described the message as deliberate: 'This is what we still have to teach, at the big-league level.' "
Though it was painful for many, trading Devers might be the first step toward a more cohesive vision for the Red Sox organization. But given the tensions reported by Lee, it could also create more problems between the team's executives and its coaches.
