The recent story of the Boston Red Sox is impossible to write without mentioning three names: Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers.
Two of those players — Betts and Bogaerts — no longer are with the organization, while Devers signed a massive contract extension back in January that’s projected to keep the third baseman in Boston through 2033.
They’re all intertwined, of course. Not just because each played a role in Boston’s most recent World Series title in 2018. But also because of how the final years of their respective contracts shook out: The Red Sox traded Betts a year before he reached free agency. Bogaerts signed elsewhere on the open market. Devers remains the last man standing, with a lucrative new deal.
This is all to say there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to handling young stars, as there are various circumstances involved in whether each stays beyond his initial contract. But it’s certainly fair to wonder whether the Red Sox’s general philosophy regarding early extensions — think pre-arbitration years, well before free agency — will change at all under new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. It’s an especially pertinent question as fresh faces come up through the farm system and form Boston’s next core.
“We want to keep highly productive, talented players in Red Sox uniforms for as long as we possibly can. And some of those are players that are currently on our major league roster,” Breslow told reporters Thursday at Fenway Park during his introductory news conference. “It’s something that I would have interest in engaging in. The more, kind of, certainty that we can have, the more efficient we can be when we look externally.”
More and more teams across Major League Baseball seem open to locking up their young standouts — in many cases despite minimal experience at the highest level — with the hope of securing team-friendly salaries that otherwise wouldn’t be attainable by waiting until those players blossom into full-fledged superstars on the cusp of free agency.
The Red Sox, as they were even before Breslow arrived, are open to going down that path, with Betts, Bogaerts and Devers offering unique glimpses into what can happen when alternative paths are chosen.
Again, there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s case by case. So, while Triston Casas and Brayan Bello, for example, look like obvious extension candidates, there are other players who might emerge, as well, once Breslow examines the franchise’s full landscape for 2024 and beyond.
