On Friday night, the Boston Red Sox and their fans welcomed back former superstar outfielder Mookie Betts to Fenway Park. With the Los Angeles Dodgers in town, Betts took the field in Boston for the first time since 2019, and it's safe to say that he received a warm welcome from fans in his return. After all he accomplished during his time with the Sox, why wouldn't he have?

Betts burst onto the scene with the Sox in 2014, and followed that up with a 19th place finish in the American League MVP race in 2015, his first full year in the majors. Betts would go on to earn four All-Star selections, four gold gloves, three Silver Slugger awards, the 2018 American League MVP, and a World Series title in 2018 with Boston. In just six short seasons, Betts made himself a Beantown legend.

And yet, as quickly as Betts came to prominence, it all came crashing down when he was traded to the Dodgers after the 2019 season due to the front office not wanting to sign him to a long-term extension. And while it's nice to see Betts back in Boston, his return is really just a reminder of how big of a mistake the Red Sox front office made by trading him.

Why Mookie Betts' return is bittersweet for the Red Sox

Betts' impact in Boston throughout his fairly short stay with the team cannot be overstated. Betts quickly became arguably the best player in baseball alongside Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels during his rise with the Sox, and his MVP campaign in 2018 (.346 BA, 32 HR, 80 RBI, 30 SB, 1.078 OPS) made him the face of their most recent championship team.

To put it all into perspective, over what really amounted to a little over five seasons of action, Betts ended up finishing his Red Sox career as their 13th best player of all time when measuring his contributions using Baseball-Reference's WAR statistic. Betts put his name above legends like Nomar Garciaparra, Carlton Fisk, and even one of his former teammates in Xander Bogaerts, in just a few seasons.

That unfortunately didn't convince the front office to invest in him with a long-term deal. Shortly after Chaim Bloom took over Boston's front office, he shipped Betts to the Dodgers in a massive blockbuster deal. It's safe to say that trading away Boston's best player for what has essentially become Alex Verdugo and Connor Wong is something that Bloom has struggled to overcome with the Red Sox.

Boston made a surprise run to the American League Championship Series in 2021, but aside from that, they have looked lost for much of the period after Betts' departure. While they have managed to exceed expectations this season, it's clear that the Red Sox probably are going to have to wait a few more years before they can become a true World Series contender again.

A big reason why that's the case is because of Betts' departure. Aside from a down year in 2021, Betts has been phenomenal with the Dodgers, finishing second in the National League MVP race in 2020 and fifth in 2o22. In 2023, with the season Betts is putting together (.309 BA, 34 HR, 89 RBI, 10 SB, 1.008 OPS) he might end up winning the second MVP campaign of his career.

Shortly after he landed with Los Angeles, Betts inked a 12-year, $365 million deal that the Red Sox front office did not want to offer him. While Betts will be making $27.5 million when he's 39 years old in the final year of this deal, that's how the contract game is played in the MLB. Realistically speaking, Boston will be in a fairly similar position when they are paying Rafael Devers $29 million when he's 36 after they signed him to a ten-year, $313.5 million extension this past offseason.

Would Betts have stuck around in Boston had he not been traded? While he's been adamant he would have stayed with the Red Sox had he gotten a similar offer as the one he got from the Dodgers, it's a lot easier to say that now that you have received the massive deal you were looking for. Betts seemed intent on hitting the open market before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, so chances are it may not have mattered.

On the other hand, though, it's clear the front office did not make the push that should have been made to keep Betts around, which was something we saw again with Bogaerts in free agency last offseason (although that hasn't come back to bite Boston very much yet). Mookie Betts making his long-awaited return to Boston is nice, but it's really just another reminder of how badly Bloom managed his situation, and it has clearly set the Red Sox back a few years in their quest to win another World Series championship.