I like to think I’m pretty good at this sports thing. Sometimes I even surprise myself.
Basically the Red Sox could have avoided this whole mess if Boston would have listened to me the first go around. Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs are the two players coming to Boston.
Jeff Passan of ESPN was the first to report the news:
Well, well, well. Chaim, thanks for listening to me bud. In the original post, I wrote that Downs was non-negotiable for Boston. If the Dodgers wanted Betts, Downs had to be in the deal. There should have been exceptions. Turns out the Sox took my advice.
Credit to Chaim Bloom for fixing this. If his plan was to foil the original trade and wind up getting more, it was brilliant. Just next time give me a phone call before you do something crazy. I pretty much felt like I was going to have a heart attack for a week watching this story go down.
More details have come in. The Red Sox will pay half of David Price’s salary and send him to the Dodgers. Boston will also receive catching prospect Connor Wong in addition to Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs. Wong hit .349 in AA in 40 games in the Dodger organization. That’s the kind of gamble that makes so much sense.
Look, trading Mookie Betts isn’t fun. To grab a bat like Verdugo and cornerstone 2nd baseman in Downs, a nice flier, and to clear half of David Price feels pretty good. The Red Sox salvaged the Mookie trade. Luckily they gave me a call so I could go ahead and help them out.
