With Mookie Betts Trade, Red Sox Stick to an Unpopular Plan

Now the Red Sox must convince disgruntled fans that their club will be back to prominence soon enough after engaging in the kind of creative destruction that other teams — including the Yankees in 2016 — have used to reconfigure their teams for years to come.

The deal, according to multiple reports, will send Betts and Price to the Dodgers in a three-team trade. Los Angeles will send outfielder Alex Verdugo, 23, to Boston and will also ship the veteran pitcher Kenta Maeda, 31, to the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota will give the hard-throwing, 21-year-old Venezuelan pitcher Brusdar Graterol to Boston. The Red Sox will also pay about half of the salary remaining on Price’s contract.

For those Bostonians old enough to remember, the trade evoked memories of letting Carlton Fisk walk away in free agency after the 1980 season; of refusing to pay Roger Clemens and Mo Vaughn in the 1990s; and of trading Nomar Garciaparra in 2004. Not re-signing Clemens proved to be a mistake. There was never any regret in letting Vaughn go, and a straight line can be drawn to Boston winning its first World Series in 86 years from the decision to trade Garciaparra three months earlier.

But all of those players were at least 30 when they departed. Betts will not turn 28 until October. At that point, he will presumably be competing in the playoffs for the Dodgers, who now have a fearsome lineup highlighted by Betts, the 2018 American League Most Valuable Player, and Cody Bellinger, the 2019 National League M.V.P.

Plus, the Dodgers will have Price, a good, veteran left-handed pitcher who helped lead the Sox to the 2018 World Series championship. But Price, 34, was never a good fit in Boston and is owed $96 million over the next three years.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/sports/baseball/mookie-betts-trade-red-sox.html?emc=rss&partner=rss