Is Mookie Betts gone from Boston? Apparently, the oddsmakers, pundits, social media aficionados and baseball glitterati have made the Betts era with the Red Sox a pleasant memory with a disappointing loss of a once in a generation player being vanquished to the Mets, Phillies, or elsewhere.
The Red Sox have a mandate real or a smokescreen to reduce payroll and get under the limbo line of a $208 payroll to avoid the complications of a punitive luxury tax. A fiscal diet is now the prescribed medicine for the Red Sox and the biggest lump of change is Betts and his possible $30 million salary via arbitration for 2020.