Latest / Bleacher Report / Pedro Martinez Sounds Off on Red Sox for Rafael Devers Trade

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Pedro Martinez Sounds Off on Red Sox for Rafael Devers Trade · Bleacher Report

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want to get into the Devers stuff immediately.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Obviously that's been the one story that's been going on
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: all across baseball. Everybody's giving their opinions, everybody's giving their thoughts.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I want to hear it straight from your mouth. What
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: do you got on this whole Devers thing? Now he's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: been traded over to San Francisco? Are we looking at
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Is this a good thing for the Red Sox, good
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: thing for the Giants? Were your immediate thoughts?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You know? First of all, I want to thank you
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: for having me, and it is an honor to share,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the things I think and I
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: know about the situations. Thank you. It's a great honor
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: to actually have my colleague have this moment with me. Listen.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: On the Dever situation, I haven't even I haven't really
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: been outspoken on it because I didn't really participate too
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: much on those things. But I have to tell you,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I think we made a mistake as an organization to
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: let it get out of hand. And one of the
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: biggest things that I have come to notice is that
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the Red Sox had a beautiful opportunity to keep everything,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: including devorse attitude, in between the you know the players,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: the inside the clubhouse, inside with the baseball people. The
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Red Sox have a lot of people. Listen. If you
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: call in Pedroia, you call him Veretech, you call him David,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you call myself, you call me into the situation. I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: pretty sure we would have convinced Devors to do anything
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: we wanted the Red Sox to have Devors do. The
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: thing is, when you don't involve your baseball people in
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: those kinds of situations, it's hard to understand how the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: player is going to respond. Devers is a guy that
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: is not very outspoken in Spanish, English or any language whatsoever.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: You need to get to know Devers in order for
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: you to kind of, you know, tell him what to do.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And I think Alex and the Red Sox dropped the
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: ball on that because Alex is someone that I think
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Devers was able to trust. But the way it was
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: explained to him, it didn't sit well with Devers. I
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: think he needed more help. He needed more people like Pedroia,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: like Big Puppy, like me, maybe Tech, some of us
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: to pull him aside, and as former players and people
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: that he respects. I think it would have been well
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: taken by Devors, but it got out of hand, it
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: went to the media, it became an ugly scene for
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: both sides. But now I'm glad both of them got
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: pretty good talent, and Devors is gonna be happy in
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: San Francisco where baseball people like Bolster Posi are gonna
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: be closer to Devors and figuring out what to do.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And he can trust guys like Bolster Posy to be
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: honest to him and tell him straight up what he
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: should be doing because he does have the rams. Yeah.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: No, I agree with you in a sense that you know,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it takes other people, either former players, players that have
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: won previously, players that have been a part of the organization,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and current players as well to kind of be able
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to talk to a player about those things right and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: talk to about you know, these are some of the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: things that we see with the team and what could
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: best work with the team and.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Give us a chance to win.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I look at who is
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and maybe I can get your take on this too,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is I didn't feel like there's anybody that Devers could
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: really go to within his own team that would be
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: able to say, hey, sit down with Devers and be like, hey, man,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: this might be a good situation for you to be
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: able to take some ground balls over at first base,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: or we might end up needing you to be able
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to move positions. Basically, he is the face of that organization,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: so it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: veteran leadership around that organization to be able to sit
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Devers down. I want to get your thoughts on whether
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: or not there's somebody you felt, even on the current team,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Devers could be able to go to and talk to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in that sense.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: In that sense, I must tell you that Red Sox
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Lou keep it quiet, but we're always around, We're always available.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Pedroia is available. Tech is working with the team. There
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: someone he can really trust. Thing is, I don't think
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: that they were asked to individually go to Devors to
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: do those things. And the press conference that they held
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: the other day didn't help it at all because you hear,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: you know, the front office, Sam Kennedy, Breslow and all
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: those guys talking about the situation, and they talked about
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: championship and stuff like that. But it's not just the championship.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It's not What we have done is understanding the human
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: inside the uniform and that's what nobody probably understands about Devors.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: How was he feeling when you were telling him, don't
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: don't your glove? Uh? Was he offended by was Hee
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: feeling I don't know, funny about not being treated like
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: someone that could be worth a position in in in
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the infield.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I think there was a lot of miscommunication, but it
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: should have been handled by baseball people, baseball people people
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: that have been there that understand what it's like to
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: wear the uniform and at the same time be a human.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't think they did the best job
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: at doing that. And hopefully this will will will probably
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: be helpful for the future because so far, Mookie Bets
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: did not leave happy, bad trade, John Lester did not
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: live happy bad trade as well everyone Chris Sale did
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: not live happy. Everybody is like looking around to see
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: what's going on with Boston and we went from probably
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: being the most probably I would say, lovable team in
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: the last twenty years to probably one of the teams
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: that everybody's gonna be looking at in the future and
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: saying if they treated Devors, if they treated Chris Sale
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: that way, if they disrespected John Lester, a free agents
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: are gonna really be looking at Boston in a in
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a different way. And that's what I'm concerned that the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: culture that we left Pedroia, Puppy Manny, all of us,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it tak all of those great players that went through
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the organization. Ah, it's going to disappear, and people are
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: going to start looking at Boston as a bad organization
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: or an organization that doesn't respect the players. And that
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I would hate to see because we went from being
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: one of the most popular teams in the last twenty
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: five years to probably be one of the most hated
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: team in all of baseball. And I don't want to
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: see that.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I don't think anybody wants to see that. Obviously,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the Red Sox have done such a great job with
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: their organization. I want to get your thoughts on now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Poppy has been recorded or reported mentioning that he had
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: reached out to Raphael and to try to get him
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to help the situation, but he never really returned messages.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And obviously this is somebody of such high standard in
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the Red Sox organization, you know, Hall of Famer. What
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: are your thoughts on Raphael maybe never get into communication
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: with Big Poppy, who could probably help out in this situation.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Well, Big Poppy also made a mistake in the spring
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: training by speaking in front of the cameras about some
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: of the things that he needed to tell Devers. And
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: just like I said before, that should have been handled
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: in house. Big Poppy should have gone out with Devors
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to talk about those things, not really openly speak in
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: in the field because the cameras are able to pick
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: up everything we say. Everything, every whisper that we have
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: out there is being picked up by the microphone. So
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: that was the first mistake from Big Puppy. The other
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: thing is I don't like to hear those comments after
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: things happen like that. I would love for Big Puppy
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: to come over, grab Devers, go to a restaurant, go
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to his house, throw a barbecue, and talk to Devers
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: in his house. As a player, I would love to
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: have a leader tell me, Peter, I would love to
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: exchange some words with you, but I want to do
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: it in your house. I want to do it in
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: your hotel room. I want to do it in a restaurant,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: just you and me alone. That's how I would treat it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: That's how I would do it if they granted me
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to go see Devers. But I was never
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: asked to go see Devers. And I actually had conversations
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: with Alex, and I said, Alex, I'm open to always
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: be around and in these kind of situations. Mediate I
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: remember that Lester at one point was disrespected by one
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of the officials in the front office and he felt
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: offended and he was negotiating an extension with Boston and
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: he decided that he wasn't gonna talk anymore. So I told,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the guys in the front office
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: allowed me to talk to Lester and let me see
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: if I can get him back to the table. And
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: all it took was for me to sit down and
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: chat with with Lester and talk to him. And he says, well, Pedro,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I have so much respect for you that I'm gonna
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: forget about how much I am and I'm going to
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: sit back down to talk. Even though it didn't work out,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: at least, I felt, you know, really happy that Lester
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: was able to listen. And I'm pretty sure Devers would
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: have done that if you send the right people to
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: talk to him.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you have Breslo mentioning that he believes
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and I want to get kind of your thoughts on
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: this too, that the Red Sox are now a better team,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: right like with them moving on from Raphael Devers. Do
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you agree with him in that sense that this team
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is better now, whether that be culture, whether that be
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you know, we've both been in the clubhouse. We know
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that there's a certain tension that comes with you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a certain player may not be doing what everybody else
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: expected of him, right obviously the highest paid player in
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the room. There comes a lot of observations with those
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: types of things, the idea that Breslo says, this team
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is better now moving on from this, do you agree
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: with those sentiments?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't you had in baseball, there's
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: one thing that's always gonna keep you humble if you
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: don't show me the numbers that that say that the
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: team is going to be better without Devors and the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: new guys that we're getting in the trade. Uh, well,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I don't have a reason to believe that. But at
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the same time, I must say, remember Breslo is a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: first year GM and he's young. Also, he's gonna make mistakes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how bright he is and how many
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: degrees he has from M I T in baseball. He's
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: still young and as a GM and dealing with players,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: he's still young. He's got a lot to see from
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: baseball as well, and I believe he's gonna do that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: And that's probably a question that he should have never answered.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I think that that would have been a question that
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I would try to skip and I would just say
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that the team is gonna respond as good
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: or maybe better without Devors and the kind of players
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: that we got. Uh, that would have been a more
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: convincing kind of answer that just boldly going out there
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: and saying that, because Devers has done great with every
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: team he has played for the Red Sox and what
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: those guys are about to do we haven't seen yet.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Now I saw what Devers did with the team, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that is a mistake from Breslo, and I would not
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: hide it from him. He should have never answered that question.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt the offensive impact that Raphael Devers
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: has brought to the Red Sox year after year after year. Now,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: it is interesting that he has now gone over to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: San Francisco and he's already mentioned that he's willing to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: play anywhere now, and he's been seen taking first base
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: ground balls over at first base already tonight before the game.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So I guess what do you think about him now
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden changing and saying okay, I'm okay
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: playing first base now being with the new team.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Sevier, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you this from my
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: point of view, and know Endeavors, Uh, Devers feels like
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: he was mistreated. I think there was a little bit
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: of lack of respect about approaching him, or maybe not
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: lack of respect, but misunderstanding his attitude, his feelings. Who
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Nevers really is and Devors, I can tell you one
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: thing one hundred and I want everybody to quote me
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: on this. Devors is a team player. Devors will do
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: anything to try to win a ballgame for his team.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Whoever tries to point a finger at Evors about not
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: being a team player is totally wrong Devors. Remember, Devers
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: is still relatively young. He's learning, he was learning as
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: he was coming to the big leagues. But Devers is
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: a team player. Devers is one of the best we
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: have seen swinging the stick. He improved defensively through the years.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: But listen, you can't be perfect at everything you do.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: He's going to be below average in some things and
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: better than average in some others. But nobody can classify
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Devors or call him not not being a good teammate
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: or a great person or a team player. He is
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: a team player. He would do anything. The problem is
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: there was a whole bunch of bad communications with Devers
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: and lack of understanding the human inside the uniform. And
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: must repeat that nobody understood the human at the moment
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: inside the uniform. And that is part of homework that
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: we have to do in the front office, in the field,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: and off the field. Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: The disappointing thing is, you know, now it's almost gonna
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: be a bad look on Devs. The fact that he's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: willing to play different position with a new organization. Almost
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: feel bad for Red Sox fans they say goodbye so
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: quickly to Devers, knowing that he was the face of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that organization, and get the bad taste in their mouth
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: with that whole thing. Man, But I obviously wish the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: best for this Red Sox organization. Hopefully those players in
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: return are able to have some impact this season, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: hopefully the flexibility financially will help out the organization as well.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I want to get to the next topic and just
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: get into whether or not this was the worst trade
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that we've seen from the Red Sox right, because we've
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: seen you mentioned some tough ones. Mookie Bets going to
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers. Obviously that was a tough one. We've now
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: seen also Chris sale get trade it to the brains
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: he wins a cy young and it said, so, now
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: we've seen this Devors trade, let me rank them.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: What do you have?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: What do you have devors As being the worst one
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of these other ones?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: What are you thinking? No, I need to see what
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: happens with Devers and the young guys that they acquired
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: from San Francisco. But so far, I must say I
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: believe it. It's Mookie Bets. Rookie Bets became an MVP,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: has been a champion twice, which is what Boston would
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: love to see. I just don't I don't feel like
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the Devas trade is is to be mentioned yet because
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: we haven't seen the results of Devors in San Francisco.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Neither have we seen the results of the players coming
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: from San Francisco in Boston. So that's yet to be
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: seen now the Chris sale. It's also another trade that
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: looks really bad for the Red Sox. John Lester is
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: another trade that looks really bad for the Red Sox. Uh,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: but Mooky Mooky is irreplaceable. It has to be. Mooky
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: one of the probably worst trades in in in the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: history of the game.