It's official. Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto are headed for the Dodgers. Beckett has waived his 10-5 rights (as a player with ten years in the majors and five with the same team, he has the right to veto any trade), and Crawford has accepted the trade despite having the Dodgers as one of just three teams in his no-trade clause.
The blockbuster trade seems pretty one sided, as the Red Sox are getting just a single major leaguer in the person of James Loney, a first baseman who is a free agent after this season. The Sox will also be getting four minor league players players: outfielder/first baseman Jerry Sands (AAA), infielder Ivan DeJesus (AAA), righthanded pitcher Allen Webster (AA), and righthanded pitcher Rubby De La Rosa (AAA) (who was claimed by the Blue Jays, pulled off of waivers by the Dodgers, and thus will likely be a player to be named later and obtained in the offseason).
The Dodgers are going to be taking on all but about $10 million of the approximately $250 million the Sox owe to their four players, who are, as Pete Abraham so aptly put it, "bad contracts, not bad people."
Carl Crawford came in and was never quite healthy, which was as much as disappointment to him as it was to the fans. Adrian Gonzalez was a slave to the heightened expectations we had for him because of his transition from the cavernous Petco Park to the friendly confines of Fenway. Neither man was prepared to embrace the demands of being a star in Boston.
As for Josh Beckett, I for one would like to say thanks for the memories. Without the man once referred to as "Commander Kickass," there would have been no World Series in 2007, and for all the crap he's said through the years, he's done some great charity work.
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