







Finally the Mookie Betts trade has been officialized and with the new developments I'd like to point out four things some people might be missing about this deal.





1: The Dodgers got a lot of heat last off-season for not signing Manny Machado nor Bryce Harper, but the fact they didn't, allowed them to trade for Mookie Betts. There is no way they do that with a 30+ Harper or Machado salary in their payroll and to me that is great business.





Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are very good players but not at the level of Betts and even if he doesn't resign his acquisition was probably the single most impactful move the Dodgers could do.









2: Here are the 2019 stats of two players involved in the trade:





Player X: 153.1 IP. 27.1 K%. 8.2 BB%. 4 04 ERA. 3.95 FIP. 2.5 WAR





Player Y: 107.1 IP. 28.0 K%. 7.0 BB%. 4.28 ERA. 3.68 FIP 2.3 WAR





Player X is Kenta Maeda and Player Y is David Price.





Kenta Maeda's contract is different than most in terms of base salary and incentive because of the injury concerns the Dodgers had when he signed from Japan but if we for a hypothetical purpose consider that he will make over the next three years what he did in 2019 the Dodgers will pay Price 40 million dollars more than what Maeda Will make over the next 3 years..





Maeda made roughly 8.5 mil in 2019. The Dodgers will pay Price 16 mil per year. Considering that LA is sending the Twins 10 million dollars to help pay for Maeda. That adds up to around 35 mil extra that the Dodgers will pay to basically trade Maeda for Price to offset the return Boston gets.





This is huge because the return the Red Sox would ask for if you didn't include Price in the deal would be quite different and looking at their performance in 2019 as long as Price stays relatively healthy he will provide at least similar value as Maeda with a higher upside based on their past production.









3: Jeter Downs and Connor Wong the other two prospects that went to the Red Sox are valuable of course but with Gavin Lux, Corey Seager, Matt Muncy, Will Smith, Keibert Ruiz and a few other players, the depth chart at catcher, second base and shortstop is so loaded that they'd probably never get much of a chance.





The Dodgers on top of Betts also got back Brusdar Graterol who looks like a great bullpen arm for the future, a considerably high pick from Minnesota (#67 overall) and Luke Raley a former Dodger who albeit at 25 years of age tore up Triple A hitting .302/.362/.516 in 33 games .





4: Looking at point number 2 and 3 we can basically conclude that the Dodgers didn't really give up much beyond Alex Verdugo to acquire Mookie Betts based on the difference between Price and Maeda and what Minnesota gave back to LA with Graterol, the high draft pick and Luke Raley.



