And he should.
If you’ve spent any amount of time arguing online about whether Rafael Devers can and/or should play first base for the Red Sox in the absence of Triston Casas after the later went down with a season-ending injury last week, then you’ve probably seen this clip come across your timeline a few times:
Great scene, guys! Brent Jennings’ deadpan delivery as bench coach Ron Washington is what everyone remembers, but let’s give a special shout-out to Brad Pitt’s surprised/frustrated/resigned reaction. Brad Pitt doesn’t need me to sing his praises (he has enough cash to pay people to split eight-hour union shifts reminding him how good-looking and charming he is) but it’s worth pointing out that Pitt might subtly be the funniest reactor in Hollywood. It’s one of the reasons why he’s so good at sidekick characters.
But anyway, that’s Pitt as Billy Beane, of course, telling Chris Pratt’s Scott Hatteberg that, in order to get his bat (or, more precisely, his batting eye) into the lineup, the A’s plan on shifting him to first base, a position he’s never played before. This clip has been repeatedly summoned from memeworld over the past week to refute those who argue that, after playing a total of 8,262.2 innings at third base in the major leagues, Rafael Devers is likely capable of moving over to first base and manning it adequately, if not well.
Nonsense, the meme-people say! First base is hard! It requires complicated footwork! And flexibility! And even a certain amount of social grace, since you’re expected to make small-talk over there for nine innings! Do you think it’s easy coming up with new conversational material every night? Tell ‘em, Wash!
Now here’s the part you don’t see in the meme: Scott Hatteberg would go on to play first base for the 2002 A’s. And it worked out just fine.
Here is an irrefutable truth of baseball: first base is — by far — the easiest defensive position on the diamond. This is not any kind of controversial statement. Bill James first wrote about the concept of the defensive spectrum four decades ago when he noticed that, while there were several shortstops throughout the game who held starting jobs despite not being to hit all that well, there were almost no first baseman who did so. The explanation was fairly simple: shortstop is the hardest infield position, ergo there are very few players capable of playing it adequately and the position’s cumulative offensive output suffers as a result. First base, on the other end of the spectrum, is the easiest infield position, ergo there are loads of players who can play it and offense is prioritized over defense. The truth is that just about anyone in the bigs can play first base. In fact, if you take the concept of the defensive spectrum to its logical endpoint, you would conclude that every single non-pitcher in Major League Baseball is in fact capable of playing first base (though, obviously, you wouldn’t want someone like Jose Altuve over there).
Bill James wasn’t discovering anything new here, but merely labeling an observable truth of the baseball universe. And if you don’t believe him, you can just go to the math. Since the year 2000, 1,265 different players have played first base in the Major Leagues. It should not surprise you to read that that’s more players than have played any other infield position. Over the same time period, shortstop was manned by only 798 total players. This is the same reason why WAR uses positional adjustments. A shortstop who hits .250/.313/.402 with 12 home runs in 142 games is far more valuable than a first baseman who puts up the exact same line merely because he is a shortstop and there are few players who can even reach that level of mediocre offense while being able to field the position. It cannot be stressed enough: first base is easy.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Rafael Devers would be a good defensive first baseman. He probably wouldn’t — at least not this year, when he’d have to make a difficult in-season transition. But guess what? That’s fine, too. It’s obviously nice to have a good defensive first baseman, but no team needs one, because first base is such a defensively inconsequential position to play. Of the top-100 players by Fielding Run Value in 2024 — that is to say, out of the 100 players who helped their teams win with their defense more than anyone else — only five of them were first baseman. Five! Out of 100! First base defense just isn’t that important, people!
So, yes, there is no doubt that Rafael Devers can play first base adequately. And remember: he wouldn’t even be replacing a good defensive first baseman. Triston Casas was not one of those five first baseman to land in the top-100 fielders last season; he was just the 255th-most valuable fielder overall in baseball last year, and only the 30th-most valuable amongst first basemen (if “valuable” is even the term you want to use here).
So why exactly does Alex Cora keep saying he has no plans to ask Raffy to slide across the diamond from his old home at third? I don’t know. The entire history of modern baseball usage and statistical analysis tells us that the optimal Red Sox lineup and defensive alignment would feature Devers at first base, thus opening up the DH spot to someone who is a more productive hitter than Romy Gonzalez — someone like, oh I don’t know, arguably the best minor league hitter in recent history, perhaps, who could play everyday by cycling through the outfield and DH if the latter spot was made available. This move seems too obvious not to make.
Maybe the rift between Devers and the team that resulted from the Alex Bregman deal is deeper than any of us knows and he’s being stubborn. Maybe he has a social anxiety disorder and is terrified of having to talk to so many people every night. Maybe a first baseman’s mitt killed his family and his entire life is one doomed Ahabian-quest for revenge. I don’t know why he’s not playing first base. But I know one thing: it’s not because he can’t.