Greatest Red Sox players who should have stayed in Boston

You knew he had to be on this list, right? I’m not trying to beat a dead horse…Mookie Betts is a Dodger now, the trade is done, and it’s time for us to all move on. And perhaps it’s recency bias, but I think it’s safe to say that when he career finished, Red Sox fans will still look back at Mookie Betts and wonder how and why he didn’t spend his entire career in Boston.

In just six full seasons with the Red Sox, Betts hit .301 with 139 home runs and 470 RBI. He won four consecutive Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, an American League MVP award, an American League batting title, and a World Series. A true five-tool player, his dazzling combination of speed, power, and grace, especially for a player of his relatively small stature, made him the most complete player the Red Sox had developed since Carl Yastrzemski.

Betts also looks to be well on his way to Cooperstown if he can continue this pace of production for another ~5-7 years. And of course, now he’s gone. I’m not going to belabor the point as I’m sure by now every Red Sox fan understands why the team felt they had to trade away the face of their franchise. Whether or not they agree with those reasons is still up for debate and probably will be for many, many years.

One thing I think we can all agree on, though, is that if the Red Sox had planned better four or five years ago, Mookie would have been a Red Sox for life instead of only six years.