Twins may withdraw from Mookie Betts megadeal, Dodgers could be in trouble
The three-team trade that would send Boston Red Sox right fielder Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers may be in serious trouble.
The Minnesota Twins, the third team in that trade, are reportedly “very pessimistic” about their end of the deal getting done, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Twins were to send pitcher Brusdar Graterol to the Red Sox and would have received pitcher Kenta Maeda from the Dodgers. The Dodgers were originally sending Maeda to Minnesota in exchange for Graterol, who would have then been flipped to the Red Sox with Alex Verdugo while Betts and David Price went to Los Angeles.
The possible dissolution of the Twins’ part of the deal reportedly stems from the Red Sox and their concerns about Graterol. Boston had counted on Graterol being a starter, but once they got his medical records from the Twins, they apparently felt that he’s more likely to be a reliever in the long term. The Red Sox weren’t happy with that, and reportedly asked the Twins to add a top 10 prospect to the package to complete the trade.
As the Star Tribune reported, the Twins don’t want to do that. While the Twins’ part of the deal isn’t dead yet, further conversations between the two teams have “proved fruitless.”
If the Twins do indeed withdraw from the deal, it leaves the Dodgers and Red Sox to complete the trade themselves, or find another team to substitute for the Twins. If the Dodgers don’t want to shoulder the blow all by themselves (and they presumably don’t since they got the Twins involved to begin with), they need to find a team that’s willing to trade them at least one semi-valuable young prospect that the Red Sox want.
That won’t be easy for the Dodgers, but even worse, they’ll have to do it quickly. Pitchers and catchers start reporting in under a week and position players report shortly after. That’s not a firm deadline by any means, but unless the Dodgers want to lose valuable team-building time as they start their quest for a World Series ring, they’ll have to get to stepping.
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