The Red Sox-Dodgers Trade That Would Send Mookie Betts And David Price To LA Has Hit A Snag Over Brusdar Graterol's Medical Records
Wow, that's crazy. Who could've seen this coming? Damn.
It's about 10:30pm ET and I'm writing this blog before the story actually gets reported somewhere by one of the Jeff Passan's or Ken Rosenthal's of the world. My plan right now is to live blog the rumors as they come across my dashboard, leading up to the official report, and then fire off the blog once it's all out there so that you can follow along throughout the behind the scenes chaos.
Earlier tonight, I got tipped off that Brusdar Graterol, the 20-year-old prospect from the Minnesota Twins, had shady medical records and that the deal was completely off. Done. Dead. That was all I had heard for a couple of hours, which was enough to torpedo the whole deal if it were true. This was from a local source who had correct inside info before. I ran it by a national source, who told me that they had been hearing "medical stuff" all day, but that the deal was too far advanced to completely get called off.
Hm. Not enough to run with it, but there's enough smoke there to know that something is up with the physicals and/or the preexisting medical records. Then, I talk to a third source who tells me that the trade was actually supposed to be announced tonight (Wednesday) with a press conference tomorrow (Thursday). As I write this, it's 11:18pm on the east coast and we've still got no trade announcement, so I find it hard to believe that the whole announcing the trade thing is going according to plan. Something's up. Pretty obvious at this point. Again, as I write this, I have no idea if the deal is dead or not.
Then, I see this tweet from Chris Cotillo:
Right, so now we're more than 24 hours removed from the news of the trade breaking on Twitter and none of the players have been informed by their teams yet that they've been traded. In addition to that, the trade was supposed to be announced tonight, it hasn't yet and the players haven't heard from their respective teams. Interesting. Very interesting. I mean, it's 11:32pm now, I don't really have anything else to do with my life, so I'm just going to sit here like an asshole and wait for news to come out that I don't even really know is actual news. Cool, cool, cool.
Just after midnight on the east coast, and here comes Ken Rosenthal to, indeed, confirm that something is up with the medicals, the player named in these rumors was correct, and this is the cause for the snag in the trade becoming official. What we do know right now is that the trade isn't off. We also know that the Red Sox didn't like what they saw when they got their hands on Graterol's medicals.
Officials involved in the three-team Mookie Betts blockbuster remain confident the deal will be completed, but perhaps not in its original reported form.
The Red Sox, after viewing the medical records of Twins right-hander Brusdar Graterol, projected him more as a reliever than as a starter, according to sources involved with the discussions. As a result of that valuation, the Sox might ask for an additional player and/or money to bridge the gap, though it is unclear whether the player would come from the Twins or Dodgers, sources said.
With this report, we can safely conclude that it's unlikely that the deal will go down as originally reported. The Red Sox are now in a position to either pay the Dodgers less money to offset the cost of David Price, take on Graterol as perceived "damage goods" as long as they receive another player in this deal from either the Twins or Dodgers, a combination of both, or they could blow the whole thing up and start over.
Either way, my first reaction was that Mookie Betts is still getting traded anyway, right? I'm not gonna get too excited there. Either the Red Sox and Dodgers will work something else out with the Twins, or you always have the Padres who were right there with LA in terms of their interest in acquiring the outfielder. I'm certainly not going to be doing any back-flips about keeping Mookie in Boston, even if it is for a few more days or however long this takes to resolve.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out, because those rumors went from the whole deal is off, what do we do now? To, the Red Sox could now be in a position to maximize their return for Mookie Betts and David Price even more, a return that was criticized in some corners of the baseball world when the news of this trade originally broke. It's important to note that the Red Sox now have a TON of leverage here, because if you're the Dodgers, you can't say "Hey, fans! Guess who we got! Mookie Betts!" and then not deliver Mookie Betts. Stay tuned.