Mookie

I know, this is a basketball blog. Indulge me for a minute.

I went to the Red Sox game yesterday. I had gone earlier in the year, but it was for part of a game that had been previously rained out. Yesterday was my first nine-inning game at Fenway Park since 2019. The main reason I went is because my sister invited me. But I also wanted to see Mookie. Markus Lynn Betts, known in these parts simply as Mookie, is the greatest player to put on a Red Sox uniform since Manny Ramirez was traded in 2008 (yes, that includes David Ortiz). I wanted to pay homage.

It was impossible to not see the mistake that his trade was very plainly on the field. The Red Sox haven't had a decent second baseman all season. Their -1.2 WAR at second base ranks 29th out of 30 teams, and dead last in the American League, a full win below the next-worst AL team. The Dodgers might have been in trouble at second base too, but Mookie – who had played second in the minors and a little when he was called up a decado ago – simply stepped in and has played second flawlessly. Two of the first three putouts Mookie recorded in this game were ground balls hit to him by Alex Verdugo, the guy the Sox acquired for him back in 2020.

Verdugo will never be anything other than average. Fine. A theoretical good value for the money paid to him. Looks decent on paper, which is all this Red Sox management team has cared about for a few years. The team's goal, now that the third Wild Card has afforded them the constant illusion of contention, is to put together an average team and hope that the wonderful variance of the 162-game season allows them to grift their way into a 90- to 92-win season that gets them into the playoffs. And from there, anything is possible.

It nearly worked in 2021. The Sox ranked sixth in pitching, ninth in offense, 11th in position-player WAR, 21st in baserunning, and 24th in defense, made its way to the American League Championship Series. They had the luxury of playing the incompetently-managed Yankees and penny-pinching Rays before running into a team that is actually trying to win in the Astros. The Sox put up a good fight for three games, but they didn't have the depth to compete in a seven-game series, and Houston outscored them 23-3 over the final three games, making the verdict more emphatic than "four games to two" appeared to be.

That remains the blueprint, and it will get them nowhere. Mookie made that painfully clear in one beautiful inning of baseball. After playing second base for the first four innings of the game yesterday, Mookie shifted to right field when Amed Rosario came into the game. Immediately, Mookie made a beautiful play on a fly ball at the first-base-side part of the right-field wall on a pop-up by ... you guessed it, Verdugo. It was a great play that Mookie made look routine. But it was even greater because he had just. shifted. back. to. the. outfield. It will always be what I remember from this game.

Five batters later, Mookie jacked a two-run homer over the Green Monster, and the game felt very much over. It was an opportunity afforded him because of a play that Verdugo didn't make. With two outs in the top of the sixth, the prior batter – Austin Barnes – fisted a fly ball down the right-field line. Barnes is hitting .165/.235/.209 this season. Nevertheless, Verdugo was playing him fairly deep. He then got a poor jump on the ball and gave up on it, allowing it to drop for a ground-rule double. It was a tough play, to be sure, but Verdugo didn't put himself in a position to succeed, and then didn't go all out to do so. You know who would have? Mookie Betts. As luck would have it, he was the next guy up, and three pitches later he made Verdugo and the Sox pay with his homer. It was as clear an example of the difference in their talent levels that could be possibly made in such a short period of time.

Mookie would tack on another RBI single in the eighth, then made deftly ran the bases to bring home the seventh and final run, to make it 7-2. The Sox would hit a couple of solo homers in the bottom half to give the illusion of making it a game, before Verdugo feebly waved at a pitch a full foot out of the strike zone to end it. If it wasn't the third out it still might have been the last because the field was absolutely drowning in symbolism at that point.

The Red Sox, in their clear desperation to change the odious narrative that not even their own broadcasters can ignore, immediately called up their best outfield prospect since they traded Mookie in Ceddanne Rafaela. While he was signed under the old regime, you'll see Chaim Bloom and Co. take credit for his promotion, because most people don't play close attention to these sorts of things. And while I am legitimately excited for Rafaela, it doesn't change the fact that Mookie made the Red Sox look foolish yesterday, and has been doing so since they traded him.

Since he was traded, Mookie has been the third-best outfielder in baseball, behind only Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. He's twice finished in the top-five in the NL MVP vote, and most likely will again this season. He's been an All-Star three times, and brought home two Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards. No one will be surprised if he gets those awards again this season. He scored the game-winning run in the final game of the 2020 World Series, and then two innings later hit a solo homer to give the Dodgers an insurance run and sew up the game and the Fall Classic. That's what great players do. That's the difference that you can't measure on a spreadsheet or in an algorithm, though what you can measure is damning enough, as he's been more than twice as good as Verdugo. Moreover, he's beloved by everyone. The crowd yesterday was about half people in Red Sox gear and half in Dodgers gear, but the overwhelming most common jersey on both sides was Mookie's. I didn't see a single Verdugo jersey, other than the one the guy on the field was wearing.

The Red Sox would likely counter that argument by saying how much cheaper Verdugo is, and to that any rational fan would tell you that nobody cares.

One of the beliefs that I helped sow as an analyst in my prior baseball analysis writing life was that a player was most valuable when he was a good value for the money. Most of the time, we were blind to the fact that there are only so many players who can do truly great things, and that you simply have to pay a premium for those players, or you'll never win anything. That's why the analytically-inclined Tampa Bay Rays have never won the World Series, and why the supposedly cutting-edge early-aught's Oakland A's never even reached one. When the chips are down, you need players who are capable of reaching beyond the talent level shown on the spreadsheet to achieve greatness. Mookie Betts is that guy. Alex Verdugo isn't.

The Red Sox can deflect and hide in their luxury boxes all they want, but until they admit that they were wrong to trade Mookie and get back to the business of pursuing top shelf players over whom they hold no leverage, they aren't going anywhere. The closest they've come since is Masataka Yoshida, but he would have cost far more had he played in the US before last season. The Sox retained that small amount of leverage in those negotiations. They didn't with Mookie, nor Xander Bogaerts, and they weren't willing to "lose" the deal with either player, so they willingly moved on from both. They can pretend otherwise all they want, but Mookie painfully reminded us all of the truth yesterday.

In Basketball News

• The Celtics have worked out a bunch of players recently. While none are likely to make a big impact, it's smart of them to be looking for additional wing depth. The team has room to sign other players, and are in fact have the fewest players under contract right now, and yet have a deep team. It's a fascinating trick pulled off by the fact that every player under contract is worthy of minutes. While the roster flexibility may not matter much in the long run, it's interesting that the team has retained it. We'll see.
• I haven't sat down to write about him yet, but I have been thinking about Jaylen Brown a lot. Maybe more soon!
• Go USA! I only watched the first quarter or so of the USA vs. Greece game, but the team is clearly very fun to watch.