Red Sox have set a terrible precedent with Mookie Betts trade

BOSTON --- It’s October 2021 and the Red Sox have just missed their third straight postseason.

Boston’s multi-year rebuild staggers along with no end in sight. Prized prospects have disappointed and the Back Bay is growing restless. Attendance at Fenway Park begins to dip.

Then, a bombshell – Rafael Devers rejects a second contract extension proposed by Red Sox executives. The star third baseman publicly states his intent to test free agency following [...]

BOSTON --- It’s October 2021 and the Red Sox have just missed their third straight postseason.

Boston’s multi-year rebuild staggers along with no end in sight. Prized prospects have disappointed and the Back Bay is growing restless. Attendance at Fenway Park begins to dip.

Then, a bombshell – Rafael Devers rejects a second contract extension proposed by Red Sox executives. The star third baseman publicly states his intent to test free agency following the 2023 campaign no matter what sort of price Boston is willing to pay. The Red Sox begin to engage in trade discussions regarding a player who projected to be one of their long-term cornerstones.

This scenario might make sense in a current baseball world where chasing value seems to be the only mandate. And the precedent for such a move was set late Tuesday night when Chaim Bloom executed his first blockbuster as Boston’s chief baseball officer.

Mookie Betts and David Price were dealt to the Dodgers as part of a three-team swap, and it’s the initial name included who will dominate the headlines. The marriage between Price and the Red Sox always seemed an arranged one, but Betts was the franchise’s brightest homegrown talent in recent memory. His exit after winning an American League Most Valuable Player award, four Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers is nothing short of a shame.

There will be folks – many reputable, some less so – who will defend this trade as one Bloom had to make. The 27-year-old Betts declined on multiple occasions to commit his future to Boston beyond the 2020 season. Bringing back outfielder Alex Verdugo from Los Angeles, right-handed pitcher Brusdar Graterol from Minnesota and shedding upwards of $45 million in payroll by moving the remaining three years on Price’s contract will be rationalized as wise business.

What’s missing? Any sort of legitimate attempt to contend this year. The Red Sox will exhaust a prime season of Devers, Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Andrew Benintendi, Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi and Eduardo Rodriguez. That’s just to name a few players who are either on the wrong side of 30 or one year closer to hitting the open market themselves.

This is certainly the kind of bold move Bloom could have made in Tampa Bay with little pushback. The Rays play in a toothless market with an underwhelming fanbase and have reached just one World Series since their 1998 founding. Their 186 victories over the last two regular seasons defied the odds, coming despite few expectations and one of baseball’s lowest payrolls.

Boston will always be a more pressurized setting, particularly over the last two decades with all four major sports franchises capturing championships. The Red Sox have won all four World Series they’ve reached and topped $184 million in payroll in each of the last five seasons. Those costs are inevitably passed on to the patrons, and their desire for victory is insatiable.

Betts and Price both chafed under that spotlight at times. Betts was frequently among the first Boston players to depart the clubhouse postgame, leaving teammates like Bogaerts to address the failings of 2019 and assume the de facto role as team captain. Price publicly feuded with NESN analyst Dennis Eckersley, one of several uncomfortable interactions with Red Sox media members.

Those are minor inconveniences compared with what Betts and Price had to offer on the field. And by any available measure, be it statistical or otherwise, Boston is a worse baseball team today than it was yesterday. Bloom has been in charge for barely three months and has already cemented his status as the perfect patsy for Red Sox ownership should this shift in philosophy blow up in their faces.

Boston’s negligence in overseeing the spending of former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski helped lead to this moment. John Henry simply didn’t exercise enough control, failing to monitor an executive who built a long track record of cutting the biggest check for the brightest star. The combined $430 million lavished by the Red Sox on Price, Sale and Eovaldi seems rather profligate indeed.

Bloom’s hiring represented an overcorrection to what has been accepted as a more modern approach, and on nights like Tuesday it evoked a visceral reaction. It also brings about the maddening temptation to predict the future, one that has the likes of Devers being moved even earlier in his Boston career. An extra year of comparatively cheap team control for Betts might have persuaded the Dodgers to take all of Price’s money or include an untouchable prospect like infielder Gavin Lux, right-handed pitcher Dustin May or catcher Keibert Ruiz.

What’s to stop the Red Sox from making such a move again? If you can trade a generational talent like Betts, you can certainly do the same with Devers. We can have the same discussion in 2026 or so if Triston Casas develops into a superstar at first base.

Nothing should be unthinkable in Boston anymore.

bkoch@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: @BillKoch25