Padres come up short on Mookie Betts trade as he goes to Dodgers

After weeks of speculation on whether or not the San Diego Padres would trade for Mookie Betts, we finally got the answer we didn’t want on Tuesday night.

It looks like the San Diego Padres couldn’t beat the offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mookie Betts will be playing in LA this upcoming season.

Momentum towards a trade really picked up Tuesday night and Jeff Passan of ESPN finally announced it as official.

As I’ve been saying for a week now, it makes way too much sense for the Boston Red Sox to deal with the Dodgers who are simply looking to take on money for some prospects.

And with Boston looking to shed payroll, they couldn’t pass up the chance to get rid of Betts and the $27 million he’s owed in 2020 as well as some of the $96 million David Price is owed over the next three years.

And it sounds like at least Alex Verdugo will be going back to Boston in this deal.

It’s also being reported that their is a third team involved in this deal. Ken Rosenthal is reporting that team is the Los Angeles Angles who would get Joc Pederson in the deal.

But other sources are saying the Minnesota Twins are the third team in the deal. Perhaps the Pederson to Anaheim deal is a separate one once the three-team trade goes through.

There are a lot of moving parts in this deal and we’ll update this article as more information becomes available.

It’s interesting that Betts and the Red Sox have been accused of illegally stealing signs during the 2018 season when they beat the Dodgers in the World Series. That could make for some fun clubhouse conversations.

As for the Padres, it was always a long shot in my opinion. The fact that Preller even had the them in the mix was a bit miraculous.

Hopefully we’ll get the details on the what San Diego’s final offer was, but again, it would have had to be a huge prospect hall for the Red Sox to take on Wil Myers‘ contract.

While this trade certainly makes the Dodgers even bigger favorites in the NL West and National League as a whole, it doesn’t really mean much for the Padres chances of earning a Wild Card spot other than they have to face Mookie and the Dodgers more often.

Now with this saga finally over we can focus on the team the Padres have and get ready for Spring Training. Even without Betts this is a very promising team in 2020. And if they’re in the mix come July, Preller will find a way to make a big move to put this team over the top.