Former Red Sox Assistant GM Zack Scott Advocates For Rafael Devers Extension
I’ve lost all confidence in this Red Sox front office. It’s hard not to at this point. The longer we go without a Rafael Devers extension, the more nervous we should be. In reality, Devers probably won’t sign until Xander Bogaerts. It’s a great giant mess that Chaim Bloom has proven incapable of handling. Former assistant general manager Zack Scott made an appearance on the Fenway Rundown podcast and laid out a pretty simple plan everyone can get behind.
Extend Devers, re-sign Xander, and add to the bullpen. Sounds easy enough, right? Here’s what Scott had to say about the Red Sox offseason.
“I think the internal guys are the key. Trying to get (Rafael) Devers wrapped up should be a top priority because if you feel like you can’t or there’s no chance… we had that situation with Mookie. At that time, we kind of knew what the answer was. We weren’t going to a certain level to sign (Betts). The organization had reasons for that. So therefore, we were going to try to trade him and see if we could get the best return that we (could).
I hope that’s not the case for Raffy. I think, given his age and his talent, is well-worth a really strong investment. But I’m curious to sit back and see where they go with that given that philosophies have changed in the past. We went from not wanting to sign pitchers in their thirties and letting Jon Lester walk to investing heavily in David Price. Then not wanting to get in the mega-contract with Mookie and now they’re faced with that same business again. I am curious, as an outsider, to see how they approach that. And it takes two to tango.
Xander is tougher because he’s older. He’s a really good player, obviously. I’m curious if (Trevor) Story is a shortstop option for them. I know they’ve said that he is. I think that he’s a good defensive player but obviously not the offensive player Xander is. These are key decisions because it affects the rest of what you can do. It affects how many dollars you can spend.
It seems like they need a lot of pitching help, really need to upgrade. Their bullpen is really thin. They have some guys coming off the books in the rotation so they need to really focus on that. I’m curious to see where they go because of this feeling of where they’re at with risk on pitchers and contracts beyond a certain length. So that will be interesting to see.“
Scott, 45, worked for the Red Sox from 2004 to 2020 and worked under Bloom before being hired away by the Mets. Scott was dismissed from the Mets for off the field stuff. However, Scott has remained busy away from baseball starting his new venture called Four Rings Sports Solutions.
