This offseason, the Boston Red Sox heated up their efforts to trade Mookie Betts. The efforts culminated with Betts last week finally being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
It turns out the two sides were talking about a Betts trade going back to last season.
Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman shared at a press conference introducing the new Dodgers players Wednesday that he and former Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski talked about a Betts trade during the 2019 season.
Andrew Friedman said he discussed trading for Mookie Betts with Dave Dombrowski last July. Asked if they made progress, Friedman said the Red Sox won a bunch of games in a row and the Red Sox stopped the discussions.
— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) February 12, 2020
That’s notable because it shows the Red Sox had been thinking about trading Betts for some time.
Why would the Red Sox have seriously considered trading Betts? They probably got the very clear sense that Betts was determined to get top dollar in free agency and probably leave. Dombrowski was later fired by Boston, who hired Chaim Bloom to run the team. One of his first acts was to trade Betts, which he said he knew would be an unpopular move.
