Rafael Devers is young, a part of an impressive team, and coming of a season that many deem to be a disappointment. Last season I warned you about Devers going go high on draft day. After a moderate first full season in Boston, how should we be viewing the third sacker heading into the 2019 campaign?
22 years old
Bats/Throws:
Height/Weight: 6’0”, 235 lbs.
Position: Third Base
THE NUMBERS
| Level | Games | AVG | HR | RBI | Runs | SB | OPS | |
| 2014 | RK | 42 | .312 | 4 | 36 | 21 | 1 | .858 |
| 2015 | A | 115 | .288 | 11 | 70 | 71 | 3 | .773 |
| 2016 | A+ | 128 | .282 | 11 | 71 | 64 | 18 | .779 |
| 2017 | AA, AAA | 86 | .311 | 20 | 60 | 54 | 0 | .955 |
| 2018 | A, AAA | 7 | .320 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 0 | .986 |
| 2017 | MLB | 58 | .284 | 10 | 30 | 34 | 3 | .819 |
| 2018 | MLB | 121 | .240 | 21 | 66 | 59 | 5 | .731 |
| Per | 162 | .254 | 28 | 87 | 84 | 7 | .760 |
| Baseball America | Baseball Prospectus | MLB.com | |
| 2015 | 99th | 90th | 96th |
| 2016 | 18th | 35th | 17th |
| 2017 | 18th | 13th | 17th |
THE SKILLS
Here are some of my statements from his Player Profile last season.
Devers outlook for 2018 isn’t appreciably different than Evan Longoria… As of this writing, Devers (125.1 ADP) is being drafted a round ahead of Kyle Seager (137.6), two rounds ahead of Adrian Beltre (158.4), five rounds ahead of Eugenio Suarez (192.5), and six rounds ahead of Longoria (199.1). He’s the youngest of the group and he’s a Red Sox, but really, his outlook isn’t better than the others. In fact, taking all of those options ahead of Devers straight up is defensible, and when you factor in the cost, it’s imperative that the others are rostered over Devers.
Here are the numbers.
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Player |
AVG |
HR |
RBI |
RUNS |
SB |
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Devers |
.240 |
21 |
66 |
59 |
5 |
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Longoria |
.244 |
16 |
54 |
51 |
3 |
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Seager |
.221 |
22 |
78 |
62 |
2 |
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Suarez |
.283 |
34 |
104 |
79 |
1 |
Here’s another point.
This is not the profile of a 30-homer bat. Currently Devers is more of a gap to gap hitter with plus power for his age, then a power hitter. I don’t see him as a 25-homer bat at this point of his development either. Twenty ok, but don’t expect much more.
He hit 21 homers.
And another.
Not enough walks, and a slightly elevated strikeout rate also suggest exercising caution in the batting average category.
The batting average for Devers dropped .044 points.
So, basically, last year I was totally on with my projection of Devers. Let’s see if we can do that again in 2019.
Devers saw his batting average dropped .044 points, his OBP .040 points and his SLG .049 points which led to an OPS drop of .088. Let’s look deeper.
As I noted in his P.P. last year, his .342 BABIP was gonna fall. It did, down to .281.
His 7.5 percent walk rate as a rookie was virtually identical in year two at 7.8 percent.
His 23.8 percent strikeout rate as a rookie was virtually identical in year two at 24.7 percent.
His .198 Isolated Power mark as a rookie was virtually identical in year two at .193.
His 15.3 percent line drive rate as a rookie was virtually identical in year two at 15.2 percent.
His 34.5 percent hard-hit rate as a rookie was virtually identical in year two at 34.4 percent.
Let me state something obvious. Devers showed a lot of similarity to his first campaign and not much growth in ‘18. It’s important to remember that he was just 21 years old last season, which given the totality of everything, is damn impressive. How many players are in the bigs as a starting player at 21 years of age? It’s exceedingly rare to be a full-time player at that age – extremely rare. He deserves full credit for that. On the flip, there wasn’t much difference in his second season, now was there? Yeah, exactly.
Some negatives…
As a rookie Devers posted a 1.074 OPS against lefties. Last season the mark was .619 as his BB/K dropped nearly in half (from 0.41 to 0.23). His wRC+ dipped from 187 to 63. His hard-hit ball rate fell from 36.4 percent to 29.9 percent while his soft hit ball rate went from 18.2 to 25.3 percent. He, predictably, took a step back from his Ted Williamsian heights as a rookie. The drastic fall in year two dropped him to the point of extreme ineffectiveness and opens up the possibility that he could be sat against some lefties in the coming campaign.
His work at Fenway also dipped. As a rookie he had a .902 OPS. In year two the number was .726. His wRC+ fell from 127 to 82. His hard-hit ball rate fell from 34.0 to 29.3 percent while his soft-hit ball rate went from 13.8 to 21.3 percent.
Let’s take a look at his second half.
His launch angle did improve to 11.0 percent last season, a big positive, after a below average mark of 7.7 percent in year one. However, in the second half his groundball rate climbed to 51.3 percent (it was 44.6 percent in the first half). That might be a positive for his batting average, but it’s certainly not going to do anything to allow him to take advantage of that increased launch angle. Oddly, his HR/FB ratio was up at 25.0 percent in the second half (14.1 first half) but it didn’t result in a power explosion because of the extra ground balls. Like a lot of the above, in the end, we’re back to about even with Devers.
PLAYING TIME
Devers, never the poster boy for a body building contest, missed times last season with should and hamstring injuries. He did report to camp in better shape this season, which is what the team wanted to see. The club has every intention of rolling him out there as their full-time third baseman, though it’s hard to see him hitting higher than sixth to open the season. There is also some concern about the struggles he faced last season against lefties. Note that there are some that think Devers has a shot to hit third in the lineup. I find that far fetched, but it would obviously be a huge boost to his value if he did end up in that spot, though he still wouldn’t be a starting option in mixed leagues.
AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA
As of this writing, here is the ADP data for Devers (since February 1st).
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Overall |
Position Rank |
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146.5 |
19th |
The Fantasy Guru Rankings can be found by clicking on the link.
CONCLUSION
His age, park and lineup suggest that improvement should be coming. However, the totality of where we currently are at with Devers suggests that we might be at a point in 2019 where that next step is gonna happen. Last year he was over drafted. This year, he’s being rostered at a point that makes a lot more sense given who the 22 year old currently is. He’s a corner infield option at best in mixed leagues, and one that is unlikely to rise above that level this season.
10-Team Mixed: I would want him as a bench option here. Even if you’re not willing to go that far, he has no business starting at third base. I wouldn’t want him to be my starter at corner infield either, not without a viable path to a .280 batting average or 30 homers.
12/15 Team Mixed: Corner infield starter, here I be. Again, not likely to happen on my team as I look at him as more of a placeholder, but if you want to take him over an aging Kyle Seager type, I totally support and get that.
AL-Only League: Devers is a starter in this format, but I don’t think he rises to the level of someone to necessarily target given his current cost.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
