They saved $12m in luxury tax by trading their best player since the legendary Ted Williams.
This is a team with more than half a billion in annual revenue. And made 80m in profits in 2018.
So a team that doesn't necessarily need to save money is still doing so, by getting rid of their best player.
See, people barely know half the story but it doesn't stop them from making assumptions.
Over the past 5 years, the Red Sox payroll has been top 3 in MLB and #1 in the last 2 years (18 and 19) so they are very well funded on the field.
Betts becomes a free agent after this coming 2020 season and has already rejected multiple offers from the Red Sox, the last one reported at 10yrs and 300 million (
https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/re...s-red-sox-had-massive-gap-2019-contract-talks) which already would have made him one of the top paid players in all of baseball, and countered with 12yrs and 420 million.
For context, since you don't have any, 12yrs and 420 million would be the 2nd highest contract in the history of the sport, behind Mike Trout who signed 12/430. Except Mike Trout is a generational talent, who despite being only 1 year older than Betts, over his career has 2x as many HR's, 1.6x as many RBIs, higher OPS by 110 points and accumulated 71.6 WAR (wins above replacement, a stat MLB likes to use) to Betts' 41.8.
10/300 would put Betts on par with the contracts signed by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado (13/330 & 10/300 respectively) though they signed these contracts when they were FREE AGENTS, which Betts isn't. Those 2 contracts to Harper and Machado i believe are the largest ever contracts granted to free agents.
So no, the Red Sox aren't looking to save money but they had a player who didn't want to extend his contract with the team and wants to be a free agent to milk every penny he can get. Losing him as a free agent means the team gets a draft pick as compensation, which would not turn into anything valuable on the field for years, if ever. In this trade they got a good player in Verdugo and 2 other players who are more likely to be useful rather than a single draft pick, plus got rid of David Price (retaining half his contract) which was a contractual nightmare and allowed them to get under the tax threshold.
The problem with the Red Sox, and why it made sense to get under the tax threshold and reset the clock when it comes to penalties, is that the previous GM fucked them hard with a bunch of long, very expensive contracts on players who are not that good, so the team is not going to compete for a WS for a couple of years until the new GM gets out of that mess.
For more context, in 2020 the Red Sox will pay 90M to 5 players who are either damaged goods (Sale/Pedroia), not very good (Eovaldi) or no longer with the team (Castillo/Price).
So stop insinuating the Red Sox are being cheap and learn more about their situation instead of making ignorant assumptions.
