I mean, right now the Sox have the worst record in the AL and the second worst record in the MLB, and are getting absolutely blasted every single night out there, and meanwhile their supposed to be franchise player that they traded because they didn't want to pay him blasted 3 HR last night and has an OPS over 1000 and is showing that he's every single bit the superstar for LA we all hoped we would be in BOS.
If you're a BOS player, that has to have a huge demeaning effect on your enthusiasm. The Sox are being nationally mocked because of this idiocy, and at a certain point these guys were bound to check out.
All part of the plan, though.
This is WEEI-caller level nonsense. You think professional players getting paid millions of dollars are playing poorly because...they're sad a teammate was traded away? I thought saying stuff like this with no actual evidence to back it up was frowned upon on this site. The team,
with Mookie and
with Cora, started off with literally the exact same record last year. One can acknowledge that this team sucks and is in the process of a rebuild without having to resort to unsupported suggestions that they're playing bad because they're embarrassed about the Mookie trade or whatever.
Once we put aside the hysterics, exploring the reasons for Devers' slump actually becomes pretty interesting. His LD/GB/FB numbers are almost exactly at his career averages, and he's actually hitting more hard-hit balls this year, according to FanGraphs. There are seemingly two main reasons for his slump. One is simply bad luck - his BABIP is way down despite those harder-hit balls. But more importantly his plate discipline has cratered - he's swinging at more balls out of the zone and WAY fewer balls in the strike zone, leading to an elevated strikeout rate, a reduced walk rate, and fewer balls put in play.
The other numbers that seem out of whack for his career averages are that he is seeing way more balls out of the zone overall, but way MORE first-pitch strikes. This suggests that pitchers have determined that the "book" on Devers is to pound the strike zone on him early and then throw him slop when he's down in the count. It also suggests that Devers should be more aggressive earlier in counts and a little more discerning later in counts. That's very similar to some of the plate discipline issues Mookie faced around the same time in his career. This is something that young batters deal with all the time and that Devers absolutely should be able to adjust to, not some sign that he's permanently broken.
(And as others above note, he started off 2019 with almost exactly the same numbers and ended up with by far the best year of his career.)