Thank you Mookie Betts

Doooweeeey!

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Thank you, Marcus Lynn Betts. Your game brought me and my family many nights and days of joy.
May you bring that same joy to new fans in Los Angeles. I'll be rooting for you, except when we face you again in the World Series.

C'mon back and see us now, hear?
 

Beomoose

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Now that it's done: Thank you, Mookie. I'm very sad you won't be wearing red socks this year, and hope you look favorably upon the next offer our sometimes infuriating front office sends your way. Be well, continue to rake.
 

CoolPapaBellhorn

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I made sure to be at this game last year, fearing that it would be his last. What a way to go out.


Everything about this trade sucks, but I'm grateful that we were able to watch him play for six years.
 

TeddyBallgame9

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After nearly 30 years living in LA I now have a good reason to attend more Dodger games. If he had to be traded I’m glad it was the Dodgers who got him.
 

ookami7m

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To quote my eldest daughter: “the photoshop of Mookie wearing blue almost made me yarf. I fear the real thing”
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
Thank you Mookie. Of all the Red Sox players I've followed, you were the most fun to root for. Not only because of the consummate athletic brilliance you bring to the baseball field, but also because of the smart, funny, quietly confident, genuine human being you come across as off it. Your departure is literally the only thing about you that has ever not brought a smile to my face.
 

Wallball Tingle

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Thanks for everything, Mookie! It was fun to watch you play all the time, and it will probably be a while before the Red Sox see another performance like your 2018 season. You'll probably be too expensive for 2021, but it would be great to have you back!
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Orrrrr, Merloni is making shit up to drive listeners to his flailing show. When was the last scoop he ever got? If an LA beat guy or a national beat guy verifies his rumor mongering, I'd be more inclined to give it a second thought.
 

Rovin Romine

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If true. It’s pretty apparent he didn’t want to be here.
If true. . .no. It really is just about the money.

Boston offered 10-year, $300 million contract.
He apparently counter-offered to Boston with 12 years and $420 million. Which means he was quite willing to stay on his terms.

Maybe 11 at 380 would have gotten it done. (Not saying Boston should have done so.)
 

tims4wins

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If true. . .no. It really is just about the money.

Boston offered 10-year, $300 million contract.
He apparently counter-offered to Boston with 12 years and $420 million. Which means he was quite willing to stay on his terms.

Maybe 11 at 380 would have gotten it done. (Not saying Boston should have done so.)
We've been over this before but timing matters. The 10/$300 offer was made after 2018. Instead of accepting, he played for $20M in 2019 and $27M in 2020. So effectively the offer was 8 years and $253 post-arbitration. If he had accepted, he would have made $300M from 2019-2028 and then became a free agent in 2029 at 36 years old, with potential to sign a contract at 36 and make some more $$.

Under the current situation, instead he has made $47M in 2019 and 2020. He will now be a free agent. If he signs a (making this up) 12 year, $360M deal with the Dodgers, he will have made $407M from 2019 through 2032, and would then become a free agent in 2033 at 40 years old. Under that scenario I'd assume he retires at contract end.

So the delta between those scenarios would be $107M that he would have to make from age 36 on. Who knows what contracts will look like in 10 years. But it's safe to say that if he does end up getting over $350M from the Dodgers then he will have made a really wise choice, and that you could argue it truly was all about the money.
 

OurF'ingCity

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But it's safe to say that if he does end up getting over $350M from the Dodgers then he will have made a really wise choice, and that you could argue it truly was all about the money.
Yep, and, as gammoseditor points out, the financial situation has drastically changed. Expect most teams this offseason to be very hesitant to sign guys to huge deals - either because they truly are concerned about finances, or because they think they can use the pandemic as an excuse to be cheaper. It’s very possible that going into this season Mookie’s outlook was “I’m going to test free agency unless the Dodgers blow me away with a 400+ million offer” but that now his outlook is “might be best to forgo free agency if we can come to a reasonable deal” (reasonable in this sense meaning 350+ million).
 

RedOctober3829

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We've been over this before but timing matters. The 10/$300 offer was made after 2018. Instead of accepting, he played for $20M in 2019 and $27M in 2020. So effectively the offer was 8 years and $253 post-arbitration. If he had accepted, he would have made $300M from 2019-2028 and then became a free agent in 2029 at 36 years old, with potential to sign a contract at 36 and make some more $$.

Under the current situation, instead he has made $47M in 2019 and 2020. He will now be a free agent. If he signs a (making this up) 12 year, $360M deal with the Dodgers, he will have made $407M from 2019 through 2032, and would then become a free agent in 2033 at 40 years old. Under that scenario I'd assume he retires at contract end.

So the delta between those scenarios would be $107M that he would have to make from age 36 on. Who knows what contracts will look like in 10 years. But it's safe to say that if he does end up getting over $350M from the Dodgers then he will have made a really wise choice, and that you could argue it truly was all about the money.
From the Red Sox perspective, if they had signed Betts to a long-term deal when he wanted then the tax bill would have been huge because of how screwed up they were LT wise. It would have hamstrung them for years to come. That's a whole other conversation on the many bad contracts that got them to that point. I will be consistent from the spring think they did the right thing, got a pretty good package for him, and get their payroll situation figured out.
 

RedOctober3829

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Oh, the Barstool Sports guy is confirming it? Well now I guess I have to believe it. :eyeroll:
Believe who you want to, but Jared is pretty tied in with baseball and the Red Sox. Here is what he just wrote.

"I know some will say until it's Ken Rosenthal or Jeff Passan tweeting it out, it's not real. I'm not going to tell you who to trust and who not to trust, but the second that Lou's tweet went out I got two texts. Both from individuals who would know what's going on here. I asked the first one if he thought this was legit. Got a "100%" as a response. Second individual seemed to believe it, too. I guess we can still wait for the actual hammer to be dropped, but it would appear as though Mookie Betts is going to be staying in LA for a long, long time as a very rich man."

barstoolsports.com/blog/2688417/there-are-rumors-that-mookie-betts-could-be-signing-a-monster-extension-with-the-dodgers-and-i-think-i-believe-em
 

nvalvo

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Yeah, I think everybody’s more alive to possible downside risks now than they were a year ago.

He’s about to play ball during a pandemic which could permanently destroy his lungs.
 

Rovin Romine

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We've been over this before but timing matters.
I don't disagree with what you wrote: I was just pointing out that Mookie would have accepted some offer to stay here. So it's not really apparent that "he didn't want to be here."

Further, his accepting LA's offer now has nothing to do with Boston. His choice is between accepting an offer from LA or testing the FA market.

Whether that's purely a $ issue or not. . .dunno.
 

tims4wins

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I don't disagree with what you wrote: I was just pointing out that Mookie would have accepted some offer to stay here. So it's not really apparent that "he didn't want to be here."

Further, his accepting LA's offer now has nothing to do with Boston. His choice is between accepting an offer from LA or testing the FA market.

Whether that's purely a $ issue or not. . .dunno.
I fully agree. It's more complicated than pure $, or pure "he didn't want to be here". Timing mattered on the front end, and it matters here again on the back end with Covid.
 

jon abbey

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It is worth pointing out that the Dodgers were a hundred percent in on Cole last winter and the only reason they stopped bidding around $300M was because it became clear to them that Cole wanted NY. Cole got 9/324 ($36M per) so add a year onto that and it's basically the rumored Mookie deal.
 

Ale Xander

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Maybe he and his family just like LA, part of it not being identified by 99.999934% of the public.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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As a franchise, LA seems really well positioned for the next handful of years, with good, young, cost-controlled hitting and pitching prospects. They’ve got Bellinger and Buehler on arb deals for the next few years. They’ve been constantly winning. Purely from a competitive standpoint, why wouldn’t Mookie want to be a part of that team? He won’t have to worry about their ability, financial or otherwise, to build a roster around him. It’s already there.
 

bankshot1

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If he signs an extension, I assume it could be structured to be fully guaranteed no matter what happens in 2021-whenever (ie no pro-rata salary in the event of no fans, games cancelled) and perhaps he gets his full $27 million or more this year, with a signing bonus.

And once more, no matter what, thanks Mookie.
 
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richgedman'sghost

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The situation has totally changed between last year and this year obviously. I will believe to the day they put me in the pine box that Mookie was intent on testing free agency after this season. However Corvid 19 was a game changer. With the games being played in front of zero fans, the owners will claim poverty and not bid on free agents. Mookie obviously decided to take the offer from the Dodgers than risk free agency. I think Chaim did the best he could considering the circumstances he was dealt.
 

Seels

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amazing that I didn't think I could hate this deal more than when they made it that day and I keep being proven wrong.

I know excusing the actions of the FO are common place here but this is brutal. I'll be happy when Henry sells.

Can't wait to see the next free agent loser get overpaid by $100m or so while we can't pay the homegrown stars we have. Maybe we can go give Castellanos $200m in the offseason.
 

RedOctober3829

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amazing that I didn't think I could hate this deal more than when they made it that day and I keep being proven wrong.

I know excusing the actions of the FO are common place here but this is brutal. I'll be happy when Henry sells.

Can't wait to see the next free agent loser get overpaid by $100m or so while we can't pay the homegrown stars we have. Maybe we can go give Castellanos $200m in the offseason.
This is a ridiculous take. Do you think circumstances in the world are the same now than when Betts turned down every offer the Sox put in front of him?
 

Rovin Romine

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amazing that I didn't think I could hate this deal more than when they made it that day and I keep being proven wrong.

I know excusing the actions of the FO are common place here but this is brutal. I'll be happy when Henry sells.

Can't wait to see the next free agent loser get overpaid by $100m or so while we can't pay the homegrown stars we have. Maybe we can go give Castellanos $200m in the offseason.
Dude. I totally missed your Covid-19 warning back in 2018. Now I feel like I've been shit-talking without any basis for it. Mea Culpa.
 

Seels

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This is a ridiculous take. Do you think circumstances in the world are the same now than when Betts turned down every offer the Sox put in front of him?
The deal was ridiculous the minute it was made. The fact that conditions have changed and now the Dodgers might go from having him for a season to being able to lock him up doesn't make it less ridiculous.
 

johnnywayback

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I have no doubt that the Dodgers were willing to pay Mookie more than the Red Sox were, but it has nothing to do with ownership greed and everything to do with the way the two franchises are set up for the future. Over-paying a superstar (relative to his objective value) is exactly the kind of thing you can and should do when you're producing cheap young talent around him. It's not the kind of thing you can or should do when you are paying a bunch of free agents market value to fill the rotation and have zero impact prospects in your system.

The Red Sox overpaid superstars in Chris Sale and David Price and it worked out poorly. They have no meaningful cheap talent coming from the minors. Whatever Mookie gets from LA, it will be a deal that would have made no sense for the Red Sox, and that's why he was never going to stay.
 

RedOctober3829

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The deal was ridiculous the minute it was made. The fact that conditions have changed and now the Dodgers might go from having him for a season to being able to lock him up doesn't make it less ridiculous.
They got way more for him in this trade than if he simply walked out the door at the end of this season. If you want to get mad at something, get mad at the people who put so many bad contracts on the books and had too many bad draft picks that they were even in this position in the first place. Their past mistakes in both FA and the draft the last few years caught up to them. They have a ton of bad money on the books and not enough cheap talent to make things work. Get this season to September 1st to reset the tax and then they can spend big again. But this time they need to spent smarter so they aren't in the position that they had to trade a generational talent.
 

sodenj5

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I have no doubt that the Dodgers were willing to pay Mookie more than the Red Sox were, but it has nothing to do with ownership greed and everything to do with the way the two franchises are set up for the future. Over-paying a superstar (relative to his objective value) is exactly the kind of thing you can and should do when you're producing cheap young talent around him. It's not the kind of thing you can or should do when you are paying a bunch of free agents market value to fill the rotation and have zero impact prospects in your system.

The Red Sox overpaid superstars in Chris Sale and David Price and it worked out poorly. They have no meaningful cheap talent coming from the minors. Whatever Mookie gets from LA, it will be a deal that would have made no sense for the Red Sox, and that's why he was never going to stay.
Almost like they learned nothing from the Carl Crawford trade. Last time they got out of jail by trading Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett, who weren’t as young or good as Mookie.

This time it cost them a homegrown superstar.

I’m happy for Mookie. I’ll always love his time here and I’m happy that he will be getting a big deal despite the unknown of the world outside of baseball when people were speculating that he might have to sweat until next February for a deal.
 

Rovin Romine

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They got way more for him in this trade than if he simply walked out the door at the end of this season. If you want to get mad at something, get mad at the people who put so many bad contracts on the books and had too many bad draft picks that they were even in this position in the first place. Their past mistakes in both FA and the draft the last few years caught up to them. They have a ton of bad money on the books and not enough cheap talent to make things work. Get this season to September 1st to reset the tax and then they can spend big again. But this time they need to spent smarter so they aren't in the position that they had to trade a generational talent.
While I agree with the fact that the signings and drafting often didn't work out well, the counter-argument to consider is the 2016 and 2017 post season berths, and the 2018 WS.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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While I agree with the fact that the signings and drafting often didn't work out well, the counter-argument to consider is the 2016 and 2017 post season berths, and the 2018 WS.
The counterargument to that is all the years to come where they won't have him in the lineup to make runs at multiple more playoff berths and possibly more titles. They may (and likely will) get some of those anyway without him, but...

How long have fans lamented that the best player in the game - Trout - is on a team that seems like it will never sniff real playoff contention? You can blame that in part on the massive amount of money the team pays he and Albert Pujols each year, which leaves them less to offer the pieces they need to make the jump, but with Boston you had a team that was on the verge of having the payroll flexibility to lock up their franchise player - someone only a couple pegs down from Trout in the overall talent category - long term AFTER winning a title with him with the promise of more to come. All they had to do, literally, was not sign a declining pitcher with serious health concerns to a massive long-term deal that has, to this point, as many predicted, done serious damage to the organization's ability to field a team build to compete with the powerhouses in the league.

The Red Sox had a chance to live out the fantasy Angels fans have been having for years and threw it away to make sure a guy who was already showing signs of breaking down was locked up for 5 more years beyond the one they were heading into, the only one they had to pay him for, even knowing how little wiggle room it would leave them in trying to sign one of the best homegrown players in recent history (theirs or anyone else's) with whom they probably weren't that far off in money anyway. Is it it a good thing he didn't sign the deal they offered or they didn't give the one he countered with? Maybe, but that's not the point. If it was Tetris, this was the equivalent of having the long brick that would have cleared four lines and set you up to win easily and putting it right next to the open space in such a way as to make it all but impossible to get another one in there before the screen fills up. Yes, you can still win, but it will be much harder and you'll constantly be wishing you'd been smarter about that one piece.
 

sean1562

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Don't the Dodgers understand that this big deal will hamstring their ability to sign Cody Bellinger when he is a FA??? Who cares if they win a WS and have one of the best seasons in team history with Mookie??

Would be kind of funny if we just end up swapping homegrown superstars in a few years. Bellinger is a FA in 2024, whats our payroll situation look like around then?
 

Jet-Boo

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To not have locked Mookie up long term is the biggest front office failure I think I have witnessed in 45 years of passionately rooting for the Red Sox. It was clear Mookie was going to test the market but if there is one player you back up the Brinks truck for it’s Mookie (sorry Isaiah Thomas). Mookie is a five tool player with intangible, excellent role model and no drama. Sad day for Red Sox Nation. Thank you Mookie!!! May God continue to bless you.
My top three in the past 30 years are: Ortiz (Papi put us on his shoulders and carried us to the long waited promise land multiple times It does not happen without him period!), Pedro (the greatest pitcher I have ever seen. He was the equivalent of Picasso painting), and then Mookie! Ok, next man up!!!
 

sean1562

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No Dustin Pedroia? The guy won two WS with us, an MVP, a ROY and took a team-friendly deal so that he could stay here and not be an albatross contract. Yea he got hurt but that could happen to anybody. Now imagine if, instead of taking that team-friendly deal, he had signed a 13 year $380 million contract.
 

Heating up in the bullpen

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To not have locked Mookie up long term is the biggest front office failure I think I have witnessed in 45 years of passionately rooting for the Red Sox. It was clear Mookie was going to test the market but if there is one player you back up the Brinks truck for it’s Mookie (sorry Isaiah Thomas). Mookie is a five tool player with intangible, excellent role model and no drama. Sad day for Red Sox Nation. Thank you Mookie!!! May God continue to bless you.
My top three in the past 30 years are: Ortiz (Papi put us on his shoulders and carried us to the long waited promise land multiple times It does not happen without him period!), Pedro (the greatest pitcher I have ever seen. He was the equivalent of Picasso painting), and then Mookie! Ok, next man up!!!
45 years takes you back to 1975. I'd put the Fisk/Lynn fiasco well ahead of the Mookie trade for blunders. Also trading Bagwell for Larry Anderson. The Red Sox got Mookie's best years, and got something for him in a trade. They got Fisk's and Lynn's best years, but nothing for them because of the front office failure. And they got two months of Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell's entire HOF career. Perspective, my friend.
 

OurF'ingCity

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45 years takes you back to 1975. I'd put the Fisk/Lynn fiasco well ahead of the Mookie trade for blunders. Also trading Bagwell for Larry Anderson. The Red Sox got Mookie's best years, and got something for him in a trade. They got Fisk's and Lynn's best years, but nothing for them because of the front office failure. And they got two months of Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell's entire HOF career. Perspective, my friend.
I don’t think you even need to go that far back - I’d say how they handled Lester was worse than how they handled Mookie, given the respective contract demands of each.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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No Dustin Pedroia? The guy won two WS with us, an MVP, a ROY and took a team-friendly deal so that he could stay here and not be an albatross contract. Yea he got hurt but that could happen to anybody. Now imagine if, instead of taking that team-friendly deal, he had signed a 13 year $380 million contract.
Well, it wouldn’t have been 13/380, but yes, it WOULD have been something in the range of Cano’s 10/240, which he signed later that offseason. Some guys take less because they want to stay and gain some long term security. Pedroia... Bogaerts... Arroyo ;).

As a fan, I appreciate that. But I don’t begrudge Mookie’s right to seek market value, or even to take a huge deal now given the impact COVID is likely to have on the market. C’est la MLB.
 

Jet-Boo

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45 years takes you back to 1975. I'd put the Fisk/Lynn fiasco well ahead of the Mookie trade for blunders. Also trading Bagwell for Larry Anderson. The Red Sox got Mookie's best years, and got something for him in a trade. They got Fisk's and Lynn's best years, but nothing for them because of the front office failure. And they got two months of Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell's entire HOF career. Perspective, my friend.
I totally agree everything you said. Bagwell for Anderson was offset in my mind with Varitek and Lowe. I loved Fred Lynn and was crushed when he left. In some ways, Lynn may be the best comparison in terms of letting young amazing talent leave and not taking care of business to ensure they stayed in a Red Sox uniform. What burns me is that we all saw how good Mookie was from early on and had plenty of opportunities to shore him up. I do understand the constraints of throwing excessive dollars and sacrificing your future and there comes a point you have to put your foot down and walk away. I'm not saying we did not do OK at the end of the relationship and trading him for something if we knew he was going to walk. My point is that we should have taken care of business well before it got to this point. I think for me the most disgusting signings were Jack Clark, Matt Young and Panda (This may be a good thread). I'm just venting because I loved watching Mookie play the game the right way and in a Red Sox uniform and now he's gone for good.