Devers Does Damage

The international blue chip has established himself as a middle-of-the-order presence

“Not a runner, but he’ll be able to trot around the bases just fine.”

I don’t think that anyone in the Tampa Bay Rays organization is spending time reading scouting reports from 2015 — especially not this week — but those words are somewhere to be found at Tropicana Field.

I wrote them after seeing Rafael Devers play seven games in May that year. He quickly became my favorite player that I had scouted.

Devers was 18 years old in Low-A ball — three-and-a-half years younger than the average player at that level — and he clearly belonged. In one game at Hagerstown, the left-handed hitter clubbed two home runs and two doubles, and used all parts of the field. There was a line drive off the centerfield wall, a homer to right, and a laser over the fence in left-center.

The offensive display justified the $1.5 million investment the Red Sox had made, signing him out of the Dominican Republic in 2013.

He showed a loose and easy swing, natural power, elite feel for the barrel, and good enough hands to convince me that he’d stick at third base. Mix in his panda-like physique, and it was just too easy to comp him to Pablo Sandoval. (To Devers’ credit, he has slimmed down and, in turn, improved his durability.)

For the first time that season, I used the 7 grade in a report. I felt great about Devers’ ability to become a Major League All-Star and the type of player who would receive MVP votes in his best years.

If the Red Sox are able to upset the Rays in the ALDS, I expect Devers to be a major contributor. He does a lot more damage against right-handed pitching, and that’s hardly news to Tampa. The matchup-oriented Rays will deploy lefty Josh Fleming out of the pen in an effort to neutralize Devers in key moments. I’m hoping we get a few of those showdowns during the series.

Tampa limited Devers to one home run and a .373 slugging percentage over the span of 79 regular-season plate appearances. (By comparison, Devers hit five homers and slugged .500 against the Yankees.)

As some of you may remember from this newsletter’s debut post, the Rays don’t play by everyone else’s constructs. It’s truly remarkable to watch that franchise follow up a trip to the World Series by posting the best record in the AL — after trading the ace of their staff.

Abreu Doesn’t Want Your Armor

White Sox slugger Jose Abreu was hit by a pitch 22 times this year, fifth most in baseball. That amounted to getting plunked in about 3.3% of his plate appearances.

Last season, when he won AL MVP honors, he was hit only three times — or in about 1.1% of his trips to the plate in the 60-game season.

The amazing thing about Abreu is that he still doesn’t wear an elbow pad when he bats. For that reason alone, I considered him for WTP Player of the Year. In a league where some batters look like they’ve come off a shift at Medieval Times, Abreu welcomes the pain.

The Astros hit him three times this season. You can see those plunkings here, along with a couple others.

Abreu’s manager, the “legit” Tony La Russa, isn’t shy about sticking up for his slugger after he gets hit. In an managerial matchup between La Russa and the Astros’ Dusty Baker, two men who wrote some of baseball’s unwritten rules, I’m excited to see what happens if Abreu — or any of the White Sox batters — are hit by Houston pitchers.

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