BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — When the Boston Red Sox ownership group addressed the media from Fort Myers, Florida Monday, WBZ NewsRadio's Jonny Miller asked them whether the Mookie Betts-David Price trade to the Dodgers was "just a salary dump."
Team President Sam Kennedy denied that the trade, finalized last week, was not about money.
"We've tried to be clear that this was not exclusively about the CBT, and getting under that CBT threshold," Kennedy said. "There would have been other ways to have done that. You don't trade Mookie Betts to get under the CBT. We traded Mookie Betts and David Price and got back significant value in return."
The trade sent Betts and Price to L.A. in exchange for outfielder Alex Verdugo and prospects Jeter Downs and Connor Wong, as well as $48 million to cover half of Price's remaining contract.
Sox Chairman Tom Werner said the trade was a tough decision, and not the first in the team's history.
"We've been in this position before," he said. "John [Henry] alluded to the trade we made when we traded Nomar. We have made unpopular trades, they haven't all turned out right, but hopefully we'll look at this trade and see the benefits of it as time goes on."
Werner said the team tried for a long time to keep Betts.
"We had repeated conversations with Mookie over a number of years to try to hold onto him for the length of his baseball career, and they just didn't work out," he said.
As for Price? Well, they didn't mention him much.
WBZ NewsRadio's Brian Antonelli (@GuPogs) reports
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