All Betts Are Off

Image Via: Getty Images

By Alex Horton

Okay so Mookie Betts got traded away last night. Lets all calm down. First and foremost, for those Red Sox fans that are freaking out because we traded away maybe the best homegrown player the Sox have ever had trust me I feel your sentiment and the pain of watching it happen. But are you seriously surprised? The ownership group came out after the season saying we need to trim the fat of the payroll and get under the luxury tax. This trade was going to happen. End of story. There are a couple of things that stick out with this trade. The Red Sox shed $59 Million off the payroll, the critics and writers are kind of right the return wasn’t great but it’s a return and the one thing everyone is literally just ignoring… MAYBE MOOKIE DIDN’T WANT TO BE IN BOSTON!!

So I guess we will start with the trade itself, Mookie Betts and David Price along with cash considerations are headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers. (cash considerations, aka the Red Sox are biting off a big chunk of the David Price contract, a-fucking-men, other than the couple of postseason outings in 2018 David Price has been the bane of my existence as a Red Sox fan.) The Minnesota Twins will get Kenta Maeda to add to a surprisingly deep rotation and the Red Sox get back in return outfielder Alex Verdugo from the Dodgers and relief pitcher Brusdar Graterol from the Minnesota Twins. Reactions? Eh. Would have preferred a better haul of prospects but what can the Red Sox really ask for when Mookie becomes a free agent at the end of the 2020 season, and like I said before thank sweet baby Jesus that David Price and his price tag are no longer on the books for the Red Sox. Look the haul is kinda weak, but you know what? It’s better than letting Betts play out the season and jet out of Boston without getting anything back in return. The real time to trade Betts was last year when the team was struggling to even compete in the AL East; the haul would have been much sweeter even though the Sox fans would have been a lot more bitter about it. But it’s really hard to even consider trading the guy that just won the MVP the year before and was a really important part of the team going to the World Series.

Now we get into the money aspect and let me tell you $59 MILLION is a lot of money to have come off the books. This is the part where some people just don’t get this trade; they look for the material that a team gets back in a trade. Well part of the material is the luxury to now spend $59 million dollars on free agents next season. Will Boston make a pitch to Mookie? Yeah honestly I don’t doubt they would. He’s one of the best if not they next best behind Mike Trout. Now don’t get me wrong I also wouldn’t be surprised to see more moves done this year. The Red Sox dug themselves a hole by signing Dave Dombrowski to be their GM a couple seasons ago. He was concerned with the right now. That’s all well and good; it won the franchise their 4th world series in 20 years. The most in the MLB through that time frame by the way. Ownership signed off on the horrible deals though, the extension to Sale, the signings of Steven Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi, and David Price even. All those contracts led to the Mookie Betts trade that happened last night. It is their own fault for not looking far enough into the future of the franchises plans to stop themselves from signing their own fate.

Now onto the player himself, Mookie Betts. You want to know something? The Red Sox did the right thing in trading Betts. If the Red Sox had kept Betts, got nothing in return he was going to leave and then what? A draft pick? Oh yeah I’m reallllly excited about those odds. Now the contract was expiring maybe they could have convinced him to stay and paid him a lot of money. But you know what. I don’t think Mookie wanted to stay in Fenway. Maybe he asked for the trade and the Sox are keeping it under wraps cause how bad would it look for their homegrown possible future hall of famer to say I want out? Bad enough to call it a salary dump and no ones the wiser about it. Maybe I’m wrong though, maybe they cleared the salary so they could make a run at him in the offseason. Who knows? But one thing is for sure; It’s going to be a long season up at Fenway and Sox fans just have to keep the faith.