Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Nomar was one half season removed from being a 6fWAR player when he was traded. Fred Lynn was valued at 8.6 fWAR one season before being dealt. That really is Betts territory.
The Lynn trade didn’t work out, largely because Sullivan made a stupid trade. (Why was Lynn traded?).
It will be a tough sell if Betts gets traded. But if trading Betts is the first step to resetting and bringing him back long term, sign me up...
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
All stuff Betts is not immune to.
The fact is Nomar was King for a long time. That he had a very quick and overblown fall from grace just shows how temporary those titles can be.
Sox fans like stars, because when this team sucked, we still rooted for Boggs to win a batting title or Clemens to win the ERA title or strikeout title. But that was then, when we didn’t see an end to a drought that started during World War I. Now we’ve seen rings and flown flags and had multiple parades. Think about - the Sox longest title drought is 86 years. The second longest - nine years, and that one ended in 1912. The longest title drought since 2000 - 6 years (2007-2013). Not only does this team take titles, it takes them without making everyone wait. And THAT is the new norm for Red Sox fans...
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Nobody cared who these guys were. Some felt we could have gotten more for AGon, despite us dumping CC.
Despite trading one of our best players, we won the ring the very next year and all was forgotten.
I'm not asking us to forget Betts- I'm hoping we re-sign him and win a ring in 2021 or 2022. Trading him (then getting him back) first might make that more likely.
Sox 4 Ever
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Here are a few contemporaries of Mays, Clemente and Aaron -- except I can't report their age 37 seasons, because they were all out of baseball by then... so here are numbers for the final year of each:
AGE 36
Frank Howard: 255 pounds, .789 OPS, 0.0 WAR
AGE 35
Boog Powell: 230 pounds, .659 OPS, 0.0 WAR
AGE 33
Bull Luzinski: 220 pounds, .693 OPS, -0.3 WAR
I'm not saying I like the option, but it might be better than these two options...
1) Losing Betts after 2020 and getting only a comp pick. (The ickiest choice, unless we win a 2020 ring.)
2) Trading Betts and not re-signing him after 2020.
3) Not trading Betts, missing the playoffs in 2020, then re-signing him.
4) Not trading Betts, missing the playoffs in 2020, then not re-signing him.
Sox 4 Ever