The Mookie Betts Trade Is Actually Going Through

After some hemming and hawing over physicals and the general backlash the Red Sox were somehow shocked to receive over trading away a generational player, Boston is indeed sending Mookie Betts and David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers. ESPN's Jeff Passan had it first:

Ken Rosenthal adds:

It's clear the Red Sox are going into hardcore rebuilding mode. Meanwhile, the Dodgers and Yankees have essentially assembled themselves into an about-even-odds-between-them-and-the-field situation for this upcoming MLB season.

There's an inherent debate in all this as far as the Red Sox are concerned. They needed to retool and probably weren't going to contend for a title this season, but on the other hand someone like Betts only comes around once every so often. Even if you're unable to re-sign him after the season, do you want to enjoy the excitement he delivers night in and night out for a year, or package him to help discard an onerous contract in Price in order to make it likelier to contend on a five-year time horizon? The ownership group has plenty of money, so they're unlikely to receive much sympathy for wanting to slide under the luxury tax threshold.

There's no perfect answer, but my philosophy on baseball is to enjoy immense talents in the present. The Brewers are on the cusp of having a similar dilemma with Christian Yelich and as a fan of the team I just want them to keep him. They're not assured to get someone that good again in my lifetime so I want to soak up all the time I've got. It stinks that they may have peaked with him in getting a 3-2 lead over the Dodgers before losing in seven in the 2018 NLCS, but he is soon fun to root for I'm okay with sacrificing some future competitiveness to enjoy it.