Felger Brown Check Mark: Mookie Betts wanted to bag every single dollar
On Friday’s Felger and Massarotti show, Mike Felger followed up on a brown check mark source regarding All Star outfielder and National League MVP candidate Mookie Betts and why he was trade from the Boston Red Sox with pitcher David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder Jeter Downs, outfielder Alex Verdugo and catcher Connor Wong on February 10, 2020.
Felger: Mookie Betts makes his return to Boston and just following up on this again, one of the original Brown checkmarks told me a couple of years ago when I asked him, how come the Red Sox because for a time there, the Red Sox just sort of let it float that they did and that they chipped out a Mookie Betts. Right. Like we didn’t know about the ten year, $300 million offer for some time. So, there was an interim there where they just sort of let it out and let it be known that they shipped out on the player. And I had someone tell me who I think would know that not all they offered in the bag. They offered him a ton of money and he turned it down. And I said, well, why won’t the Red Sox, you know, leak that out? Why won’t they let us know? If not on the record, then, you know, put it out there. So we’re not calling them cheap. And he said, well, they’d rather be considered cheap than an undesirable location. And so that’s just what I heard a couple of years ago, and it sounded real. It sounds unreal then. Sounds real now, especially since Deep Throat here checked back in overnight, says, Yup, this is the official brown check mark from so-and-so and so on. So, yes, you know, I’m informed with the blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can’t give away my source.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 28: Mookie Betts #50 of the Los Angeles Dodgers looks on during a game against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park on September 28, 2022 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Felger: You said the money stuff is obviously being brought to the forefront this weekend and I stand by it 100%, 100%, as we discussed, because it’s 100% true. Mookie Betts wanted to bag every single dollar and I don’t begrudge him for it. He wanted 400 million and wanted to set records for the Players Association and didn’t make that a secret. So when the Red Sox offered ten and three hundred million plus and he didnāt take it and they weren’t going to four hundred million, they pivot and look to trade. It wasn’t until COVID when Mookie took 365 for 12 years what Los Angeles said ownership was hesitant with Dombrowski after the bad Chris Sale contract as it was, and Dombrowski gets fired at the end of 19 and ownership had their director for him. Bloom, he did okay in the trade because they also had to unload David Price’s contract. And Betts only had one year left trading a transformative top five player in baseball is never easy. He says Mookie wants to play both sides of this because he wants to be perceived by fans as a casualty of Red Sox ownership being cheap. And they are. But he did not want to stay. It’s easy to jump on the poor decisions by John Henry, but there are receipts about these negotiations. Keep up the good work, love the show, blah, blah, blah. So that’s the update and it feels like it’s coming together, as you know. Would have stayed. Yes. Did he want to stay? No. Did the Red Sox really want to give him that contract? No, certainly not what he was asking for. I’m sure the ten and 300, they had to hold their nose and hope he didn’t take it. And he didn’t. So, you know, as I said yesterday, no matter what they say now, the Red Sox didn’t want to sign him to that contract and he didn’t want to be here. And anything else and anything they say now is bull crap.
Mazz: Yeah, that’s how I feel. Again, I think at the end of the day, neither side wanted the deal to happen.
