Rich city/poor city.
Mookie Betts $27 million 2020 salary "forced" the Boston Red Sox to trade Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers today.
Francisco Lindor $17 million 2020 salary will "force" the Cleveland Indians to trade Lindor before August 2020.
Mookie Betts:
| Year | Age | Tm | SrvTm | Sources | Notes/Other Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 22 | Boston Red Sox | $514,500 | 0.070 | contracts | |
| 2016 | 23 | Boston Red Sox | $566,000 | 1.070 | ||
| 2017 | 24 | Boston Red Sox | $950,000 | 2.070 | contracts | |
| 2018 | 25 | Boston Red Sox | $10,500,000 | 3.070 | ||
| 2019 | 26 | Boston Red Sox | $20,000,000 | 4.070 | contract | |
| 2020 | 27 | Boston Red Sox | $27,000,000 | 5.070 | avoided arbitration | |
| Earliest Free Agent: 2021 | ||||||
| Career to date (may be incomplete) | $32,530,500 | Does not include future salaries ($0) | ||||
Francisco Lindor:
| Year | Age | Tm | SrvTm | Sources | Notes/Other Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 22 | Cleveland Indians | $540,300 | 0.113 | ||
| 2017 | 23 | Cleveland Indians | $579,300 | 1.113 | contracts | |
| 2018 | 24 | Cleveland Indians | $623,200 | 2.113 | ||
| 2019 | 25 | Cleveland Indians | $10,850,000 | 3.113 | contract | |
| 2020 | 26 | Cleveland Indians | $17,500,000 | 4.113 | avoided arbitration | |
| Earliest Arb Eligible: 2021, Earliest Free Agent: 2022 | ||||||
| Career to date (may be incomplete) | $12,592,800 | Does not include future salaries ($0) | ||||
How messed up is this? MLB has devolved into a system, which includes these flaws:
- Both the star player and his team see no choice: they must part company after 4-5 years of club control.
- Both stars are already making more money than they could possibly know what to do with.
- One team is rich enough to pay its star free agent mega bucks. The other team is not. Yet both stars are leaving.
How do we know? Because the rich team, Boston, has already traded their star, Betts. The overwhelming consensus is that the poor team, Cleveland, will trade their star, Lindor.
And neither star will give his original team a home team/town discount. To do so is not even considered.
In another time, how would fans have felt about Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle having these dynamics? Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio? Of those four, only Mays did not play his entire career for one team and Mays left at age 41 for his dismal demise with an expansion team.
There's a sub dynamic: Boston made its decision before spring training even started. Cleveland may wait until July and tank (trade good players) with the usual one third of teams in the utter disgrace and almost ultimate challenge to the proverbial integrity of the game, which makes tacky sign stealing look like the trivial nonsense that it is. Solution: no trades during the season.
And yet the trivial consumes us while the substantive is the subject of endless handicapping, as if that is a game of its own.
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