I like the Dodgers but not enough to hand them Mookie Betts.

Can someone please tell me why a baseball team with the highest payroll and steepest ticket prices cannot figure out a way to keep a franchise player, the 2018 MVP and someone who presumably wanted to finish his career where it started?

I know there is something called a luxury tax, which is baseball’s version of a salary cap, but the Yankees sign who they want to sign and blow through whatever taxes they have to pay to do it. They signed Gerrit Cole for $300 million, which is outrageous for a pitcher who appears in about 33 of the team’s 162 games.

Betts agreed to $27 million for the 2020 season with the Red Sox after holding firm on his agent’s number of 400 million over 10 years. And as a free agent after the coming campaign, Betts could possibly sign with another team and leave the Sox with maybe a fifth-round draft pick as their only compensation.

But don’t unload him before the new season for a hitter who finished 2019 injured and pitcher who has yet to prove himself. Everyone involved in the three-team deal has to pass physicals and maybe one won’t so cooler heads can prevail.

Boston finished 19 games behind the Yankees last year, and maybe without Betts they can’t do any worse. Oh, yes they can. Are we forgetting that along with the team’s four World Series rings in this century there were even more playoff misses.

The Red Sox ownership are multi-millionaire business men, I get that. They own a European soccer franchise, a NASCAR racing team and the Boston Globe newspaper. But the Red Sox are the crown jewel of New England sports, with books written about them and movies made.

Can they say with a straight face to fans paying up to $300 per game for a box seat that they are truly trying to win a championship and not on some cost-cutting 5-year plan?

Not to me and millions of others, who want them to roll out a Cadillac to match the Yankees’ Mercedes every season, not drive some used cah into Fenway Pahk, a cathedral of baseball.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: Bailing Out
Roy Williams probably had reasons for the soft statements. Carolina fans reacted strongly to the video of a team party after the win over Duke. Only Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharpe were in the video, but a statement from players and managers said it was supposed to be a closed event that other students and […]
Chansky's Notebook: Please, Go In!
UNC men's basketball faces what is an early season must-win at Georgia Tech. Art Chansky says a look at the statistics is painful, but not terminal.
Chansky's Notebook: Leaky Steps Up
Dean Smith used to say he’ll be happy with a one-point win. The legendary UNC basketball coach struggled spiritually between playing well according to his teachings, regardless of outcome, and winning no matter how poorly you play. Since his job was to win and he was so competitive, he chose the latter. If he was […]
Chansky's Notebook: Rock(et) Star
Ben Kiernan was UNC’s MVP of the Notre Dame game. When Mack Brown went over the 31-17 loss, he gave mixed reviews to the two main branches of his Tar Heels’ play. He said the offense was good in the first half and then “went dead” in a scoreless second half. He praised the Tar […]
Chansky's Notebook: Goals and Ambitions
Garrison Brooks has both opportunity and pressure. On paper, the ACC looks as weak as it has been in some time due to widespread losses to graduation and early departures to the NBA, and no sure-shot superstars in the incoming recruiting classes. A beneficiary of this development is Brooks, the Carolina senior who was second-team All-ACC last year and earned the league’s […]
Chansky's Notebook: A COVID Debate
Clemson was livid that Florida State wouldn’t play the game. Let’s be lawyers, and make a case for each of the teams that did not play its scheduled game over the weekend. Clemson had traveled to Florida State when it learned a player with mild symptoms who had practiced with the team all week tested […]
Chansky's Notebook: Draft Dodgers
Carolina and Duke players have lost ground in the NBA draft. Like everything else with sports in the COVID era, the NBA draft goes off tonight after being postponed for five months. And if you look at the various mock draft boards, certain things jump off your screen. First of all, about half the names […]
Chansky's Notebook: A Two-Thirds Bet?
What if Phil Mickelson and Mack Brown amended their bet? With the Masters being moved back to this weekend due to COVID, perhaps the three-time champion should revisit the fun bet he made with Carolina’s football coach back in 2003. The famed lefthander was still seeking his first Green Jacket when he partnered with the Texas football coach at the […]
Chansky's Notebook: Kudos To Carolina
UNC teams did a commendable job beating the odds. Who among us thought the ACC would be playing football and other fall sports last summer? With the pandemic upon us and the medical experts still learning, the seasons looked like a long shot. While other conferences pumped the breaks and/or called off football, the ACC […]
Chansky's Notebook: Extra Motivation
Carolina’s schedule could be working to its advantage. When the COVID-revised list of games came out, it looked troublesome for the Tar Heels with Virginia Tech and Florida State basically bookending Notre Dame and Miami with four rivalry games in a row right in the middle. Coaches usually don’t like that because it takes a […]
›