L.A. Betts on Mookie

A winter of speculation ended with a huge trade Tuesday night, as the Red Sox shipped Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in a multi-player deal designed to get them under the luxury tax.

The four time All Star and 2018 MVP -- set to earn $27 million this season -- becomes a free agent next winter. And Boston -- yes, "New England's team," with huge TV revenue and an always sold-out for top-dollar Fenway Park -- felt his price tag had risen too high to risk getting only a draft pick should he walk.

There was more to the trade -- the Dodgers also agreed to take David Price and (most of) his over $30 million salary off the Sox hands, so they could slip under the luxury tax threshold.

The lesson here is not so much watching a home grown star become pricey, if not unaffordable, under his years of team control. It points to the mistakes former team president Dave Dombrowski made in signing Price to a contract that paid maximum money as his productivity and durability declined -- and then gambling on the same kind of package for fellow ace Chris Sale.

While the Red Sox played the practical side of the numbers, the Dodgers' head of baseball operations Andrew Friedman rolled the dice. There is still no assurance Betts will be in Dodger Blue past 2020. And David Price is not consistently on par with Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg. Still, he gave up only Alex Verdugo among his top prospects, holding onto impressive young players Gavin Lux and Dustin May. You could say he stared down his Boston counterpart Chaim Bloom at the high-stakes table.

Now the Red Sox can retool or rebuild or reboot... or just watch the Yankees and Rays battle for the AL East and then slug it out with the Twins, Astros and maybe the A's and Angels -- who picked up slugging outfielder Joc Pederson as part of the deal, as L.A. shed his $8 million salary to make room for Mookie -- slug it out in October.

And the Dodgers get a year of Boston's best home grown outfielder since Jim Rice for what looks like a very modest cost.