BOSTON — Unpacking the shock and pain of the Rafael Devers trade, a deal equal parts damning and dumbfounding that stripped the city of a superstar and its last player to win a World Series in Boston, leads only to more shock and more pain.

The Red Sox traded their best player without shopping him first.

The Red Sox traded their best player because the math said so.

The Red Sox traded their best player caring more about the pennies on his contract than the pennies on the dollar they acquired in return: two prospects, a starting pitcher they immediately optioned to Triple-A and a flame-throwing righty with career-long control issues.

The Red Sox traded their best player, one of the best hitters alive, because they botched their relationship, decided they couldn’t or wouldn’t fix it, and decided simply to punt.

Now it’s time to punt on these Sox, too.

Why does this team, a top-down portrait of mismanagement, deserve your time and money if it won’t spend either properly to chase another championship?

Never forget John Henry, the principal and apparently mute leader of Fenway Sports Group, is not fully committed to building a contender in Boston.

The Red Sox poured just 42.1% of their revenue from last season into this year’s payroll, per BrooksGate, the eighth-lowest percentage in baseball that trailed poverty franchises like the A’s, Nationals and Rockies. Twice in the past five years, these Sox have traded their best and highest-paid player; spit in the face of a fan base that doesn’t hear from Henry, who hasn’t spoken publicly in five years.

Unlike Mookie Betts, Devers was at least under team control through the rest of his prime when the Sox sent him packing Sunday. If you squinted, offloading the $254 million attached to the eight-plus years left on his contract read like a silver lining.

Well, congrats to the front office. Raise the banner, and print the shirts: “We saved a few bucks, 2025.”

Those will be the only new shirts the team can hang in the team store come October. Without Devers, the Red Sox’ playoff ambitions in 2025 are cooked, finished; a direct consequence of this trade the front office knew when it completed the deal.

Devers’ contract, by the way, came with ownership’s approval only two and a half years ago. Then, they axed the man they allowed to design that deal, Chaim Bloom, and replaced him with Craig Breslow.

So far in his tenure as chief baseball officer, little about the robotic Breslow has become clearer than his shortcomings as a modern-day GM. He does not seem to connect with players. He manages them like assets instead of people; Devers’ situation being a prime example, followed closely by the team’s top prospects getting called up to play out of position, within a platoon and with no runway.

Remember: Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony are only playing for the Red Sox because injuries to Alex Bregman and Wilyer Abreu forced Breslow’s hand. Devers won’t play for the Red Sox anymore because he poked Breslow in the eye last month with his public comments and privately refused to play first base after Triston Casas got hurt. Again, there is no plan here.

And so what if Devers refused? Did it ever occur to anyone inside team headquarters why the Red Sox didn’t have a backup first baseman in the first place or promised Devers he wouldn’t play the field again? That’s on Breslow, whose front office doesn’t seem to realize stockpiling talent is barely more important than keeping said talent happy and productive in today’s game.

Which brings us to the roots of the Devers tension.

He was unhappy. And they were unhappy that he was unhappy, lashing out with his inaction and lack of professionalism. But there is enough space, even in the most primitive fan brain, to accept Devers was sensitive and selfish, and those offenses do not amount to what ownership and Breslow did Sunday night: betray the future of the franchise with a disastrous deal.

Devers is arguably a top-10-to-15 hitter on the planet, and inarguably had been carrying the Red Sox offense. He is a full-fledged star at 28. He gets to be selfish because he is that valuable to this franchise, as its best labor and product. Devers is an exceptional player, and a player worthy of having exceptions made for him.

After all, this was once the franchise that accommodated “Manny being Manny.” Even if Devers isn’t precisely the hitter Manny Ramirez once was, he is mere steps off a Hall of Fame trajectory. Whether Devers maintains that track in San Francisco is immaterial to the fact the Red Sox, fresh off a sweep of the Yankees and winners of eight of their last 10 games, pulled the plug on their own season minutes after reviving it.

Shame.

Worse yet, there’s reason to hope, despite credible reporting suggesting the relationship was “unsalvageable,” that Devers might have changed his tune.

In February, he went public with his refusal to move off third base and become a designated hitter. The Red Sox waited for Devers to cool. He did. He became their DH, and thrived.

Later, Casas got hurt, the front office and ownership came crawling back to Devers with a request. He declined again, but continued to mash — posting an OPS near 1.000 with nine homers and 33 RBIs since Henry met with him last month — miserable as he might have been. And the Red Sox, finally, began rolling.

“We’re playing good baseball,” Devers said post-game Sunday, “but we still have more.”

What of the drama between himself and the team?

“Yes, it’s past us,” Devers said, via interpreter Carlos Villoria Benítez.

Apparently not. Hours later, he was gone.

If Devers’ great offense was disrespecting ownership or the front office, the Sox can trade me next, but only after one last word for them both.

Team-building is not about squeezing sufficient value out of every single contract or assembling a roster of yes men. Ask the Dodgers if Betts and Freddie Freeman and Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are each worth every last penny of the billions of dollars they’re earning combined. Or if the Mets regret operating at a reported loss of $268 million last year.

Of course not. That’s what the money’s for as a big-market club: widening your margin of error in pursuit of a championship, knowing not all books will be balanced, but you can survive that because your pockets are deeper than your opponents’.

The Dodgers won the World Series. The Mets reached the NLCS. Every dollar was well-spent because that’s the whole reason they do this, and why we watch. To witness greatness and memorialize it with titles.

The Red Sox should be spending like them. Period. Instead, they just traded their only great hitter and most expensive player — again.

But hey, cheers to Fenway Sports Group for saving a few bucks.

All it cost was the last good will of a fan base you don’t deserve, and a star player who deserved much, much better.

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