I liked Betts and would have loved to see him remain a Red Sox for life. I do believe the Red Sox made the right call in trading him when they did. I also believe Betts had every intention on leaving Boston, and a desire to get to free agency wasn’t the reason he never signed the supposedly multiple extension offers from Boston. If I recall, the Red Sox last offer was something like 10 years and $300M. I’m sure the Dodgers offer was lower than the 12 year and $365M contract that was agreed to. It seems to me, both teams valued Mookie fairly similarly.
Time will tell, which team wins out. Is this the beginning of the Red Sox making a course correction and fixing their payroll by going under the luxury tax line? I will never accuse the team of being cheap, as they have consistently been one of the highest payroll teams in MLB. How many years will a 5’9” Betts max out his size for LA? Will he be their version of Dustin Pedroia? An undersized player who’s body gave out on him and never lived up to the contract he signed for? I loved Dustin, but his contract has basically been dead money for years and is still going.