Mookie Betts 2020 season: Dodgers have 3 options, one will surprise you

Option 1: Trade Him

Are you crazy?! Would the Dodgers really trade Mookie Betts only months after acquiring him in an on-again/off-again trade that felt like a poorly scripted romantic comedy? Given the current environment, perhaps they should consider it.

Now bear with me for a second.

At this point in time, nobody knows how the spread of the coronavirus will impact our daily lives on issues far more important than baseball. Whether or not the 2020 season is played is far down the list of priorities for public health officials to consider, other than in terms of providing guidance on when it is suitable for large public gatherings to meet again.

But if the 2020 season is canceled, it’s possible the Dodgers could have traded young assets for nothing other than a few photoshoots with Betts wearing that beautiful Dodger blue. If that is the case, trading him offers the team an avenue to recoup some of their losses.

Now, this option might never materialize as Major League Baseball is putting a temporary freeze on roster moves once their agreement with the Players Association on how to deal with the 2020 season is finalized. However, the two sides will eventually need to decide when to lift the freeze, and it’s possible a window could open before the season begins to make a move.

Most likely, the roster freeze will be lifted when the schedule has been decided, at which point the Dodgers will know exactly how many games they are working with in employing Betts’ services. Is it possible the schedule morphs into something unrecognizable and the Dodgers decide they can live without Betts for a small sprint of games?

“I think we need to get into what does the season actually look like,” Friedman recently told the LA Times when asked how a shortened or canceled season might affect his evaluation of the original trade.

Of course, there are real human beings involved in making trades, it’s easy to write about something on an internet blog, and it’s another to make families pack up and move, especially if they just did that exercise a few months earlier.

If the Dodgers have hopes of signing Betts over the long-term, it might not be the best way to get in his good graces by trading him months before they try to woo him back to La La Land. That said, a player at the top of the game like Betts will be demanding a contract that only a select few teams will be able to afford. The Dodgers will be in the running for the superstar centerfielder no matter what happens, as long as they come to the table with a dump truck of money.

Could a small market team looking for a revenue infusion look to pay a premium for Betts over a few months to help them sell tickets and generate interest on a lost season? It’s something to at least consider.

Option 2: Extend Him

A more logical approach to pressing the nuclear button and trying to trade Betts would be to work out an extension before the 2020 season begins, if it does at all. The uncertainty surrounding this season and the ripple effects from lost revenues and a shrinking economy create the real possibility for a fragile free agent market next winter.

While Betts shrugged off the suggestion of an extension upon first arriving in LA, circumstances have changed drastically since then, with players being advanced money by MLB owners to keep their cash flow fluid until baseball returns.

Many believe it will take as much as $400 million to lock up the former MVP. Mike Trout set the market one year ago, signing a 10-year extension that turned into a 12-year, $430 million contract. Betts is the same age as when Trout signed his mega-deal, many believe he will fetch something similar in normal market conditions.

But what if most owners are recovering from a lost season in 2021? Will there be less suitors come the winter in an already small group of teams with deep enough pockets to make a play for Betts? Does this depress his value in the open market? Might he be willing to forgo the entire process to get paid now? It seems reasonable to think so.

Option 3: Wait and See

Probably the most likely of the three options as circumstances might dictate the terms, the Dodgers could just wait and see what happens over the next several months, neither extending Betts, nor trading him, simply hoping he is a part of a special season in 2020, and they can go from there.

While there are no clear benefits to this option other than whatever risk you place on Betts potentially getting injured in 2020, which, God forbid, if serious enough, could alter his long-term value, it is the path teams are usually forced to follow with superstar free agents like Betts.

After winning an MVP award, three Silver Slugger awards, four Gold Gloves, a batting title, appearing in four All-Star games, and winning a world championship, at the prime age of 27, Betts has earned the right to test the market and search for the largest contract possible.

Luckily, for the Dodgers, they happen to be in very good position to offer him the largest contract. They are currently estimated to have $117 million of salary on the books in 2021, well below the luxury tax threshold of $210 million (of course numbers could change based on how revenue is impacted by the coronavirus).

The Dodgers can also hedge their bet on Betts by making him a qualifying offer, and thus, they would receive a compensation pick if he eventually signed elsewhere. They wouldn’t really lose him for nothing at that point, they would at least gain an extra draft pick in what now promises to be a deep 2021 draft.

A lot of options for the Dodgers to consider.

Thanks for reading! Keep checking back for Dodgers news, analysis, and historical perspective as we wait for the season to begin.