Was Raffy Devers dealt too soon??

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Was Raffy Devers dealt too soon??  Wiggy: "Do you believe trading Devers affected this team negatively?" Coco: "Yes"

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00:00Red Sox, as I mentioned earlier, Red Sox had dragged me back in.

00:06It was not that long ago that they swept the New York Yankees.

00:10And I and many others were very excited, and now I am out.

00:15This is a series in which you're playing an inferior team

00:20and should be able to win the series,

00:23should be able to win a game in the series,

00:27and you are unable to do so.

00:29So we will talk to Craig Breslow about that coming up.

00:32This is Bob from Warwick, Rhode Island.

00:36Hello, Bob.

00:38Hello, Greg.

00:39What's up?

00:40First of all, I want to let you know that I hate the Red Sox.

00:45Okay.

00:46All right.

00:47Yep.

00:48Any team that beats the Red Sox is number one in my book.

00:52Okay.

00:53Including me and definitely the Yankees.

00:55Okay.

00:56So you're a Yankees fan?

00:57All right.

00:57Bob?

00:58Well, I really hate the Red Sox.

01:01I don't care who beats them.

01:02So in other words,

01:09Cora's pathetic.

01:12He won the World Series in 2018.

01:15Anybody could have won.

01:18He won the World Series in 2018.

01:21Anybody could have won that with that team.

01:25Right.

01:25Cora's pathetic.

01:27His brother, Joey Cora, is ten times the ball player that Cora ever thought of being.

01:33Okay.

01:33John Henry never should have signed him in his three-year contract last year.

01:40He's not going to quit.

01:42He doesn't give a damn.

01:44He's going to get paid if he doesn't resign for the next year and a half.

01:47Well, I'm glad about that.

01:50I'm glad about that.

01:52Nobody said he's going to quit.

01:55I mean, obviously, he wouldn't quit.

01:56I don't think you can assume that Alex Cora wants to be here going forward based on, you know,

02:05his argument may be that they haven't given him the guys to win with.

02:11He can't do that now.

02:13He can't do that no more.

02:14Like, that narrative went out the window this year.

02:17Like, you gave him everything you asked for.

02:19You had Bregman.

02:20You got your hog of a pitcher.

02:23Like, you've done everything that, you know, we were asking you to do before the season.

02:29Oink! Oink!

02:30And I don't think that's an excuse now where you could be like,

02:35because before Bregman got hurt, you stunk.

02:37Before you traded Devers, you stunk.

02:40Like, so before Casas got hurt, you stunk.

02:43Well, you didn't necessarily – you were getting back into it before you traded Devers.

02:50Like –

02:51Yeah, you had a little stretch where you went on that stretcher.

02:56You won seven to ten games or whatever the hell it was.

02:59You swept the Yankees at home.

03:01Fenway was going nuts.

03:02Right, but that was like –

03:03Devers hit a dinger that game.

03:04That wasn't who you were.

03:05Like, you know –

03:06No, I'm not – I'm not excusing anything.

03:09Right.

03:09It's just the decision to trade Devers when they did had everything to do with Devers

03:16getting to a point where a team was comfortable eating the entire contract.

03:20That's why it was done then, because otherwise, there is no rush.

03:25You want to see what Bregman is in some capacity, at least see him in Worcester on the way back

03:31to the field if you actually still thought this was a season you would contend in.

03:34I agree.

03:35Go ahead, go ahead.

03:35The hardest part is that you'll never know what they could have been, because they did hit

03:39a hot streak right then.

03:40Then they trade him, and things fall off.

03:42And yes, they won, what, two games after Rafi left, and everybody – that's when Greg got

03:46dragged back in.

03:47You won a series.

03:48But you won a – yeah, you won a series.

03:49But at the same time, the time in which they traded him, there was before, right before

03:55that, and then after.

03:56And after, they got way, way worse.

03:59Right, but you stunk before that.

04:01But they were – but they seemed like they had figured it out.

04:04All right.

04:04They seemed like maybe they had squashed any beef that was in that clubhouse, that maybe

04:09Rafi was figuring out his spot on that team, and they had figured it out, and that guys

04:15were starting to play their full potential, the ones that they had that were healthy.

04:20And after, you fall back off again.

04:22So who knows if they don't trade Rafi at that point, if they could have kept that momentum

04:26going.

04:26See, I think they knew, and this is why we talked about it, like, they knew the team

04:32that they are.

04:33I think – who was it that said it was?

04:34Dennis Green, the legendary football coach who said, we are who we thought they – you

04:40know, we are something along those lines.

04:41We are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.

04:43Right, so, like, I think before the trade, they knew they were a below 500 baseball club.

04:50And I think after the trade, they know they were a below 500 baseball club.

04:56I think it's the opposite.

04:57I think they thought they overachieved to that point, that Devers was hurting the development

05:02of the young players, and that absent Devers, the lineup flexibility they would have, the

05:06ability to add more at the deadline because they would have the cash left over, they could

05:10be a better team.

05:10I think they thought that.

05:12If you want to crown them, then crown their ass.

05:14But they are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.

05:18Yeah, I mean, I think looking back at the offseason, and this is on Craig Breslow, I believe, not

05:26on Alex Cora.

05:28You thought that the moves they made would, we all thought, would significantly approve

05:34the baseball team.

05:35And, you know, Garrett Crochet, great move.

05:39Can't say anything about it.

05:42Bregman, I thought, was a great move.

05:44And I think it remains one.

05:47I can't, you didn't know he was going to be hurt, and now he's not going to be back until

05:52after the All-Star break.

05:54So you can say both Breslow and Cora had good offseason moves.

05:57Well, but Walker Buehler, that's been a miserable failure.

06:01Right.

06:04You know, guys that you thought from a bullpen perspective, whether it was getting Liam

06:09Hendricks back or...

06:11Chapman's been good.

06:12He's like your only...

06:12A plus.

06:12Chapman is another...

06:14A plus.

06:14There is an A plus move, and that's, that is Craig Breslow.

06:19But here's who they were before the first Yankee series where they, where they won that

06:26series.

06:27They were a, they had just lost the series to the Angels, and they were 30 and 34.

06:35Then they went on that little bit of that run where they, they won the series against the

06:39Yankees, and then they won the series against the Rays, and then the sweep.

06:43And then, and then Seattle.

06:46But I think that they're coming back down to earth on what this team is.

06:52And that's the, the, you're starting pitching other than crochet.

06:57You don't know what you're going to get.

06:59You might get some games where you get a bunch of runs.

07:01You might get some games where you get two runs.

07:04Like, this is who you are.

07:05And I think that they realized that.

07:07And, and I agree with you, Curtis, they probably could have waited to trade Devers, but I think

07:11they got to the point where they were like, you know what?

07:13We might as well just rip the Band-Aid off.

07:15He didn't text Poppy back.

07:17You know, for whatever reason.

07:18But don't you think that there could be a momentum shift in the, what they could have

07:21gained from that Yankees series was completely thrown off because then they were getting

07:26asked about Raphael Devers once again.

07:28So then what was, so then what happened after the Seattle Mariners series where they took,

07:33they, they won that series and then they played the Giants and Rafi Devers.

07:37Right.

07:38So how do you, what, what was the thing that changed that you lost whatever the momentum

07:42was from the Seattle series to the, the giant series and that, and then now to where you

07:48are.

07:48Well, I think the clubhouse got bad again.

07:50I think they, the, they're all, you can't have it both ways.

07:52Like you can't say the clubhouse needed to remove Devers and everybody was feeling great.

07:58And then they hit a little bit of a patch and said, Oh, the reason why they hit this

08:01patch is because I don't think that Rafi was a issue in the clubhouse.

08:05I'm never going to believe that.

08:08That's never going to be something that I believe.

08:10I don't think that he had any impact on the younger players.

08:12I don't think anybody cared that he was, you know, fighting with the front office.

08:15I truly don't believe that.

08:17So, so, so I guess the question is then, do you believe trading Devers affected this

08:23team negatively, which is leading them to this slump?

08:26You think it did mentally or baseball wise?

08:29They got worse on the field and then they also, all these players then had to be asked

08:33about, can you believe that they traded Raphael Devers and they're getting asked about it

08:37over and over again, once again.

08:38I mean, I just like their major league baseball players like the, the.

08:41So then why would Raphael Devers hurt them in the first place?

08:44Well, the 978 text, which says he was protecting, you know, you have Devers in that lineup and

08:50he's protecting everybody else when it comes to hitting.

08:52And I like, like, I'm sorry.

08:54Like I, you're, you're playing major league baseball, hit the, hit the baseball.

08:58So then you, you don't think that Rafi hurt the younger players or hurt anything in the

09:03clubhouse because they're major league players and they, they're not affected.

09:06Yeah.

09:06I think maybe, maybe mentally, I like my issue with him was he was not a team guy.

09:13And eventually when you have all your eggs in one basket, 30 million of them, you're

09:19going to have a problem with a guy who's not willing to help out here or there.

09:22But I, how, like, I don't get that.

09:26Okay.

09:26So he's not willing to help out here or there, but now you have lots of, lots of roster

09:30flexibility to play a bunch of guys that can't hit their weight.

09:33Like I just, the trade Devers at that point is so, it's just so dumb on its face that

09:39people defended it.

09:41You finally get it turned around.

09:43You sweep the Yankees at home.

09:44People are like, wow, we have a season now.

09:47And then it's trade Devers because he won't acquiesce.

09:51And he and Breslow, it's untenable with the front office.

09:54He's not texting David Ortiz.

09:56And now you're sitting here.

09:58We're about to hit July.

09:59I just got an email from the Red Sox promoting ticket sales over the weekend.

10:02You can get 12 seats together anywhere in the park on a gorgeous week, weekend before

10:084th of July.

10:08And you ended your season before the trade deadline.

10:12That's what they did.

10:13They quit.

10:13I thought the thing was by him, not being a team player, you couldn't have roused the

10:19flexibility.

10:19You couldn't do things that you wanted to do.

10:21But that's what everybody was screaming down my face about that when I was like, just

10:26leave him at the end.

10:26No, you can't do this if you leave me.

10:28And so what they did is they must have got to a point where they could not deal with him

10:35not being a team player.

10:36This is Art from Walpole.

10:38What's up, Art?

10:40Hey, guys.

10:41I think we're overlooking the obvious with the Red Sox failure this year so far.

10:46So, Kirsten Kosses was supposed to be a massive piece of this team.

10:51Gone.

10:52Bredman gets hurt prime time during the beginning of the season.

10:56Gone.

10:57The saviors, Roman Anthony, the can't-miss rookie, has been a disaster.

11:03Mayer has been meza-meza.

11:05So, nothing has gone really right with those four pieces.

11:08And Campbell has been, ended up being a real, real bad situation, too, the other rookie.

11:13So, guys, it's been a real bad, a bunch of bad things, bad luck with injuries.

11:20And the rookies have let them down massively.

11:22I think they would count on some of these rookies to be vital rejuvenation pieces when

11:27everything else happened.

11:29Nothing has gone right in that regard.

11:31So, are you willing to accept that as an excuse, the injury excuse?

11:36Absolutely.

11:37A very significant part.

11:40I mean, Kosses was supposed to be a big part, Greg.

11:42A big, big part.

11:44And then, Bredman, your best all-around play, has been hurt the last five, six weeks.

11:48Yeah, I think that's a big, big problem.

11:51Yeah, and, Art, Giancarlo Stanton's out, and the Yankees' best pitcher, Garrett Cole,

11:55is out for the year.

11:57How are they doing?

11:58Well, listen, I'm not saying there aren't other problems.

12:01Every team has injuries.

12:03This team sucks because they're poorly put together.

12:05Yeah, yeah, well, possibly, but those injuries have been a massive contributor to problems.

12:13But who could have foreseen Tristan Kosses, who was basically built the house in Worcester,

12:19how you would rely on him for an entire season is on you.

12:23Right.

12:23He's not exactly Cal Ripken Jr. out there.

12:26Because prior to this year, he only played in what, how many games last year?

12:29Why do we give this ownership excuses?

12:32Like, why?

12:33He only played in so many games because he refused to come back from his nagging...

12:37Rip injury, whatever the hell it was.

12:39That felt like he was being stabbed.

12:41Yeah.

12:42So, I mean, yeah.

12:45I have to put it, like I said, I have to put it on the player's plate and Alex Cora's plate.

12:52The front office ownership group, you can be upset about trading Devers when they traded him.

12:59They could have held on to him, whatever.

13:00Like, you can get me to agree on that point.

13:03But you can't tell me going into the season, they didn't do everything that we wanted them to do.

13:09They did that, and you as a manager weren't able to get the best out of the guys that they gave you.

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