Player Spotlight: Rafael Devers

         For my first ever publication as an amateur sports writer I decided to go with the player that sticks out the most to me and that would be the young Rafael Calcano Devers. Devers made his MLB debut with the Boston Red Sox 7/25/2017 at the ripe young age of 20 years old. In that half a season he played 58 games with 222 AB, 63 H, 10 HR, 30 RBI, and 57 SO making his AVG .284 (MLB.com). 

          This may not strike many as being an absolutely fantastic player, especially if you take a look at his fielding stats which consisted of 14 errors in 56 games. His inability to play on the field is probably what makes him dead last in the top 12 in the team. The good news is that with a new season comes a new frame of mind. Devers is now a year older, a year smarter, and a year better and it shows with his spring training stats. This spring, Devers has played 15 games with a total of 43 AB, 3 HR, 8 RBI, and only 4 SO. 4 SO in 38 AB! Last year with only 22 AB he had 3 SO so though the SO is the less, he as been at the plate more often.

  He ended last season with and AVG of .284 and is coming up to the end of Spring Training with a .349.  That is a big leap with all things considered and with batting average like that, we could be seeing fantastic things in the year to come. His fielding, on the other hand, has shown an improvement in every stat except one…which is errors. Last year during spring training he made two errors just like this year, but we can give props to him because last year he played 56 innings where he is sitting at 73 innings this year and a more astounding difference is he has started every game he has played where last year he only started two games. By the end of the season he will amass many more innings and at that time we can judge his fielding based on errors. Errors aside, thus far he has more than doubled his PO, has one more assist, he has 2 double plays, he has allowed no passed balls or stolen bases, and his range factor and field percentage are both higher. That is with 5 more innings under his belt and he still has 5 games left. Everything has increased and he isn’t even close to finishing. His batting has increased an insane amount compared to last year’s spring training where last year he finished with a .284 AVG and this year 5 games before the end of the season he has a .349 average and just about every stat has improved in both batting and fielding.

All of the stats reported can be found on MLB.com, Baseball-reference.com, and the official Boston Red Sox website.

    Devers may be listed as the worst of the best due to his fielding, but if he keeps improving in this manner, he will be top 5 in no time.   

"This is the place to be" -Manny Ramirez

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