Exciting news, Boston Red Sox fans! Your team announced a big upcoming makeover earlier this week. That's right ... a plan to redevelop various sites around Fenway Park into apartments, offices, retail space and maybe even a hotel. A boutique hotel, most likely. Something unique, not your generic Marriott or Holiday Inn, perhaps a five-star hotel that offers everything.
This news came on the eve of Game 1 of the World Series, when Mookie Betts proceeded to do it all in the Dodgers' victory to open the series, including his mad dash around the bases -- stealing second and third and then beating the throw home on an infield chopper. He later homered and, not that anybody is going to feel any sympathy for Red Sox fans, you can only imagine the pain they felt seeing Betts do all this for another team. Indeed, after a Betts single in the eighth inning, Joe Buck spoke for Red Sox Nation when he said, "Red Sox fans are watching this going, 'Hello, why did we trade this guy? How can they not afford Mookie Betts?'"
Betts was the popular face of a successful franchise, the 2018 American League MVP who had scored 264 runs over the 2018 and 2019 seasons and appeared on his way to joining Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and David Ortiz on the Red Sox's Mount Rushmore. All they had to do was sign him to a long-term deal. Considering the deep pockets of the Red Sox, that certainly seemed plausible, even as the 2019 season ended with Betts unsigned beyond 2020 and ready to head into free agency.
In the end, we know what happened: In February, just before the start of spring training, the Red Sox traded Betts and David Price to the Dodgers for outfielder Alex Verdugo and prospects Jeter Downs and Connor Wong.
"This trade is a very hard one to make," chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said at the time. "But our mission, our charge as a department, is to compete consistently, year in and year out, and to put ourselves in a position to win as many championships as we can. We can only accomplish that goal with a talent base at all levels of the organization that is deep, broad and sustainable."
Bloom, hired away from the Rays after the Red Sox fired Dave Dombrowski in early September of 2019, inherited a team that had gone 84-78 in 2019 but one that had a large payroll, a lack of depth on the major league roster and a farm system regarded as one of the weakest in the majors. Even after the trade, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel ranked Boston's system 27th. Dombrowski had fulfilled his mission: Win a World Series by spending money and trading prospects. But it was time for a change and a new outlook. Bloom would be tasked with rebuilding the organization from the bottom up -- even if it meant trading one of the top players in the game, one who had reportedly turned down a $300 million offer from the Red Sox and seemed determined to test free agency.
Buster Olney summed up Boston's situation at the time:
Mookie Betts understands his importance to the union and wanted to get to free agency, as Gerrit Cole did, to push the free agent $ ceiling for the union brethren. That is his right. Leaving Red Sox with a choice: deal him, or get almost nothing for him if he walked away.
- Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 5, 2020
Eight-plus months later, of course, the Dodgers have been declared "winners" in the trade. They are chasing that elusive World Series title, Betts has starred not only in the regular season but in the playoffs and, the relish on the Dodger dog, they signed him to a 12-year, $365 million extension in July. Meanwhile, the Red Sox had their worst winning percentage since 1965. Pull out the handkerchiefs.
It's easy to bash a team with the rich resources of the Red Sox, but this may still end up as win-win deal -- or, if you factor in the Twins, who were in the original three-team deal that had to be reworked, a win-win-win. The desire to declare the Red Sox losers after one year feels premature. Consider again what the Red Sox faced in February. They had concluded they weren't going to sign Betts before he reached free agency, and history tells us that once a player reaches free agency he almost always leaves.
In the past five offseasons, including 2019-20, 18 free agents signed contracts of $100-plus million. Only three of those players re-signed with their current team, and two of those three, Stephen Strasburg and Yoenis Cespedes, had opted out of existing contracts (so there was no chance to re-sign them until they opted out). Only Chris Davis re-signed, and the Orioles drastically overpaid at the time.
"We felt we could not sit on our hands and lose him next offseason without getting value in return to help us on our path forward," owner John Henry said in February.
The Red Sox were already paying Xander Bogaerts through at least 2025, Chris Sale through 2024, Price, J.D. Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi through 2022, and even Dustin Pedroia through 2021. Price, at $32 million per season, had the highest average salary but was coming off a 4.28 ERA and had missed significant time with injuries in both 2017 and 2019. Without a strong supporting cast and with the health risks with Price and Sale, the Red Sox decided contention in 2020 wasn't a sure thing and they had to get younger and deeper and replenish the organizational depth. It helped, of course, that trading Betts and Price allowed them to get under the luxury tax threshold, which resets their penalty rates for upcoming seasons, a big financial incentive.
The original trade sent Betts and Price to the Dodgers, with the Red Sox picking up about half of Price's remaining $96 million, the Dodgers sending Kenta Maeda to the Twins and Verdugo to the Red Sox, and Twins reliever prospect Brusdar Graterol also going to the Red Sox. When concerns arose over Graterol's medical reports, the Dodgers and Red Sox reworked their side of the deal, with L.A. sending Downs and Wong to Boston. The Dodgers, looking to pare some payroll with about $43 million in new salary coming on board with Betts and Price, then worked a separate deal with the Twins, Maeda for Graterol (with secondary players on both sides).
Then COVID-19 hit. Betts signed his extension during spring training 2.0. "I know the Dodgers are going to be good for a long time," Betts said upon signing. "I love being here, everything about being here. The people here made me feel so comfortable. Everybody's amazing. This organization is a well-oiled machine. I love it."
He does love playing for the Dodgers. He certainly looks good in that classic Dodgers uniform. In the wake of COVID-19, however, with teams facing huge economic losses, the free-agent market was suddenly a big unknown. The Dodgers may have been bidding against themselves. Given the unusual circumstances that arose, it seems a little unfair to criticize the Red Sox just because the Dodgers were able to sign Betts.
Still, the Dodgers have Betts and will have him for a long, long time. Maybe he'll eventually supplant Don Sutton or Don Drysdale or whoever is on the Los Angeles Dodgers' hypothetical Mount Rushmore. They have the hard-throwing Graterol, who throws 100 and might be the team's future closer, although he'll have to start missing more bats. Price opted out of the 2020 season but will return in 2021 to add even more depth to a rotation that had the second-lowest ERA in the shortened season. They are happy.
Maeda went 6-1 with a 2.70 ERA for Minnesota and is signed through 2023. The Twins have made the playoffs the past two seasons and will be a strong candidate to get back next season. They are happy.
The Red Sox? Time will tell. Verdugo was very good in 53 games, hitting .308/.367/.478. His defensive metrics were very good and he could take over in center field in 2021. Is he Mookie Betts? No, of course not, but in 598 plate appearances over the past two seasons -- about a full season's worth - he's been worth 5.2 WAR. That's an All-Star-level player if he performs like that. He's under team control for four more seasons. They will be especially happy if Downs, the better of the two prospects, develops as hoped. He hit .276/.362/.526 with 24 home runs and 24 steals in the minors in 2019, reaching Double-A, and projects as the team's second baseman of the future. Kiley ranked him as the No. 50 prospect back in March.
No. 50. A number Red Sox fans remember all too well.