As recently as Jan. 9, I advocated for the Red Sox to keep Mookie Betts, asking, “What’s the worst that could happen? They might actually have a good team?”



That argument remains powerful, assuming the Red Sox see themselves as an 88- to 93-win club with Betts, and maybe better if things break right.



But there is another side — the side the Red Sox could use to justify a trade of Betts, a move they are strongly considering based on their recent talks with the Padres, Dodgers and other teams.



Let’s view this from the perspective of Boston’s AL East rivals and how they would prefer the Red Sox to proceed. Whatever the preference of those teams might be, the Sox should do the opposite.



So, here are Boston’s options:



• Keep Betts, proceed with, say, a 25 percent chance of winning the division and sacrifice the future value they would receive in a trade from a motivated, prospect-rich team such as...