To describe Sunday’s trade as sudden would be the understatement of the year, at least.

Actually, to describe it as a trade at all seems inaccurate.

Let’s call a spade a spade. The Red Sox dumped Rafael Devers. In the midst of playing their best baseball of the season, hours after sweeping the Yankees, winning their third consecutive series, and getting over .500 for the first time in weeks, the Red Sox dropkicked the face of their franchise and put their entire season and future in jeopardy.

It’s difficult to know where to begin attempting to unpack the end of Devers’ Red Sox tenure, but one thing is certain: their best hitter and only proven winner is gone because the Red Sox made a mess and decided this was the way to clean it up.

In making this move this way and at this time, the front office showed their hand; they were done with Devers, no matter the consequences. They didn’t shop him – though they listened to a few offers – they unloaded him at the first real opportunity, to a Giants team desperate for an impact hitter after several failed free agency bids in recent offseasons. Sure, Boston gets a few pitchers and an outfielder out of it, but the return is almost entirely beside the point, so I’m not even going to bother delving into them.

The Red Sox wanted to scrub their hands of Devers, whom they first signed at 16 years old in 2013, and then signed to the longest, richest contract in franchise history in 2023. They wanted a leader who would go with the flow and not air things out to the media. He was upset about lack of communication and felt the Red Sox made him a scapegoat and hung him out to dry.

They mishandled him so spectacularly, though and not just over the last several months. After deciding not to keep Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, two strong leaders, the Red Sox tried to force the quiet Devers into a leadership role for which his personality was never suited. First, by process of elimination: they removed the veterans he looked up to, including slugger J.D. Martinez, catcher Christian Vázquez, and most importantly, ‘big brother’ Bogaerts. Then, they gave Devers his franchise-record 10-year, $313.5 million extension, which made him the face of the franchise.

As many people who know Devers could have told the Red Sox, kicking this baby bird out of the nest wouldn’t lead to him finally taking flight.

“He is shy! You know, he’s like a big kid,” said David Ortiz at spring training in 2023. “He don’t have the personality that I have, and I’m never gonna ask him to have it. It is not fair to ask anyone to be exactly the same way.”

Devers didn’t pretend, either.

“They want me to be a leader, and I get it, but I still feel like I’m really young to be that leader,” he said at Red Sox Winter Weekend ‘23, and added that he wanted to “focus on the work” and “do right” by the younger players.

But the true unraveling began this past offseason when the Red Sox waited to broach the topic of a position change with Devers until after they agreed to terms with Alex Bregman during the first week of spring training. Worse, it came after they spent the offseason convincing Devers not to pay attention to what they chalked up to media speculation.

Thus, it was an intransigent Devers who addressed the media for the first time in camp and repeatedly answered “No” to a slew of questions about his role.

Devers felt betrayed and misled, sources said at the time. He’d been a proponent of Bregman signing with Boston from the beginning of the offseason, but was under the impression the Red Sox would have Bregman take second base. Devers had been assured third base was his domain when he signed his extension, and manager Alex Cora reiterated throughout the offseason that he thought Bregman could play other positions. Heck, the Red Sox had actually drafted Bregman as a second baseman back in the day before he went off to LSU!

“I don’t know where that comes from,” Cora said at MLB Winter Meetings in December. “I haven’t talked to Raffy about (moving off third)… I guarantee we haven’t had those conversations.”

Privately, however, Cora complained about Devers reporting to camp out of shape, and made it clear Bregman was his choice to play third as soon as the news broke, a source told the Herald at the time.

Devers toed the line in a follow-up media session, saying he would do what was asked of him, but the wheels were already in motion. When an injury abruptly ended first baseman Triston Casas’ season on the first Friday of May, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow approached Devers and asked if he’d consider learning the position. He declined. In a postgame scrum days later, he called out Breslow and said the Red Sox hadn’t been true to their word.

“I’m not certain what (issue) he has with me,” Devers said through an interpreter as teammates paused around the clubhouse to listen and grew visibly frustrated and shocked. “He played ball, and I would like to think that he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy… In (spring) training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH. Right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”

Devers’ censure led to Breslow, CEO Sam Kennedy, and principal owner John Henry making an unscheduled trip to Kansas City for a sitdown with the slugger. There, they chided Devers and discussed what it means to be a good teammate.

Barely a month later, Devers has new teammates.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, have put a new spin on one of their worst habits.

To truly understand Sunday’s trade, one must revisit Jon Lester, Betts, and Bogaerts.

Lester is one of the only great homegrown pitchers this franchise ever developed and a two-time World Series champion in ‘07 and ‘13. He declined a lowball extension offer, so the Red Sox traded him to the Oakland A’s at the ‘14 deadline.

Betts is one of the most talented all-around players the Red Sox have ever had, and when he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame one day, there will be a Dodgers logo on his bronze plaque.

The Red Sox didn’t trade Bogaerts, but they shoved their two-time World Series champ and unofficial captain out the door all the same. The beloved shortstop wanted to be in Boston for his entire career, and even initiated a team-friendly extension to further that dream. The winter before his first opt-out, the Red Sox asked Bogaerts to help them land Trevor Story, a fellow shortstop. It was a slap in the face, but ever the team player, Bogaerts complied and helped the Red Sox sign his own replacement.

None of these moves made the Red Sox better. All of them made the Red Sox considerably worse and further fractured their relationship with their fans.

Devers was the one who broke the chain, the homegrown star they finally valued enough to keep. He was ownership’s penance for Betts (and Bogaerts). Until Sunday.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, this immediately vaults into the top-five most stunning, franchise-altering trades in Red Sox history, if not higher.

When Boston sent Betts to the Dodgers, it was easy to make comparisons to the sale that launched 86 years of misery in Boston; the 1918 Red Sox won the World Series and announced the sale of Ruth on Jan. 5, 1920, and the 2018 Red Sox won the World Series and agreed to the Betts trade on Feb. 10, 2020. Both players went on to enormous success with their new teams.

But there are several parallels here, too. Chiefly among them that unlike Lester, Betts, and Bogaerts, Ruth and Devers were under team control for the long haul; Ruth, because he played in the pre-free agency era when the Reserve Clause essentially meant teams owned their players, and Devers, because he agreed to a contract that would cover most, if not all of the rest of his career.

Ruth also clashed with Red Sox ownership over his position – he wanted to play left field and hit every day, rather than pitch – and owner Harry Frazee was cash-strapped and sick of his superstar’s antics. The present-day Red Sox often act as though they’re cash-strapped, and they were sick of Devers.

“I should have preferred to have taken players in exchange for Ruth, but no club could have given me the equivalent in men without wrecking itself, and so the deal had to be made on a cash basis,” Frazee said when he announced the Ruth Sale to the press.

While the Red Sox are receiving players and prospects this time around, the ‘cash basis’ is key again: the Giants are taking on the entire remainder of Devers’ contract, over $230 million.

This is how the Red Sox clean up the mess they made with Betts, and the mess they made with Devers.

What the Red Sox either fail to realize, or are unbothered by, however, is that the aftermath of this decision will be messier still.

First, because this isn’t Nomar Garciaparra at the 2004 deadline, getting you a few pieces to complete a team. The Red Sox may have flexibility in the designated hitter spot now, but overall they are even less complete. It is very difficult to see this team making the playoffs, let alone winning it all.

Second, because when a team trades a player like Devers this early in the season – has something like this even happened before? – it’s almost certainly not a one-and-done situation. Boston still has too many outfielders, among other pressing roster matters.

So, where do the Red Sox go from here? In an ideal world, this wouldn’t destroy all the momentum of the last week, but I’m not optimistic. Trading your best hitter and the only player remaining from your last championship team doesn’t exactly scream ‘Playoff push!”

The Yankees, however, must be over the moon.

Nor do I think the trade improves the club’s reputation. Executives around the league were shocked by the move. Free agents were finally starting to choose Boston again. Now, they’re all going to want no-trade clauses.

But above all, how will the Red Sox survive their latest round of ‘Torment Our Fans?’ The front office begged for patience as they rebuilt the farm system. They promised this year would be different, with Devers surrounded by legitimate talent courtesy of a front office that finally put their money where their months are.

Instead, it is both the same and somehow possibly worse than so many other years. Fans are rightfully appalled and will make themselves heard; unlike 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic kept fans at home that first season without Betts, the Red Sox won’t be able to escape fans’ ire this time around.

Devers was the last remaining member of Boston’s most recent championship team; he was the only person on the roster who knew what it takes to win in one of the most intense sports towns in the world. That wonderful, thrilling, dominant 2018 squad turned a hubristic soundbite from Yankees GM Brian Cashman into the slogan of their playoff run: they “did damage.”

But as of Sunday, they’re all gone.

And the damage really is done.

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