Red Sox Owner John Henry Defends Mookie Betts Trade; Mookie Bids Farewell!
It was touch-and-go there for a bit, but the Red Sox-Dodgers trade involving Mookie Betts, David Price, and prospects finally went through last week. Now right fielder Mookie is part of the Los Angeles Dodgers, though John Henry, principal owner of the team released a statement on the team’s Twitter account attempting to defend the franchise-altering decision to send out Betts ahead of his impending free agency. Read on…
A Statement from #RedSox Principal Owner John Henry: pic.twitter.com/7q60LENAi8
— Red Sox (@RedSox) February 17, 2020
CelebNSports247.com reports that John Henry, principal owner of the Red Sox decided to pen and open letter defending Red Sox-Dodgers trade involving Mookie Betts.
Apparently, getting trading Mookie Betts was NOT what principle owner John Henry wanted to do.
What is interesting is this, if the owner of the Boston Red Sox, has to pen a letter of this length to defend a decision, you probably should not have done it.
It was even more interesting that Henry brought up the trading Nomar Garciaparra in 2004 as a parallel. Except Nomar was 31 when he was shipped out of Boston, and Betts is currently 27. Nomar played infrequently in his last half-season in Boston after missing the first two months of the year with an Achilles injury and was limited leading up to the trade deadline that saw him sent to Chicago. He played 81 total games in 2004, and only 38 for the Red Sox. The least amount of games Betts has played in any season was 136 in his MVP year. In 2019, he missed all of 12 games. Boston was a playoff team with World Series hopes when they traded Nomar at the deadline, and it was certainly debatable if he actually contributed to those championship hopes with his injuries and quickly-depleting defensive capabilities. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Betts would have brought Boston closer to a championship in 2020, but we’ll never know how close because they didn’t even give that version of the team a chance, according to The Big Lead.
The only real similarity with the two is that both were hometown favorites who came up in the system.
Henry probably should’ve done what most other owners do in such times, which is give menial explanations like, “We’re doing what’s best for the ballclub.” Instead, he’s putting himself in the crosshairs even more so than before, and in Boston no less.
Mookie Betts took to social media to bid farewell to the Red Sox after 9 years.
He states:
Over the years I have realized we are all part of something bigger then one person, or one city. Though the jersey will change, the mindset will not.
