The Boston Red Sox (eventually) found a willing Mookie Betts trade partner in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom reportedly had other options on the table.
The New York Mets exchanged "several" trade proposals with the Red Sox regarding Betts this offseason, the New York Post's Joel Sherman reported Wednesday.
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The Mets viewed their own young outfielder, Jeff McNeil, as off-limits in trade talks, per Sherman. But here's who New York was considering dealing to Boston in exchange for Betts, via Sherman -- and why those deals fell through.
The Mets offered packages centered around Brandon Nimmo or J.D. Davis and one of their top infield prospects, Andres Gimenez or Ronny Mauricio. But that did not muster enough traction, especially because to make any deal work the Mets were going to have to counteract Betts’ $27 million 2020 salary by likely including Yoenis Cespedes and Jed Lowrie.
The structure of those packages is similar to what the Red Sox eventually received from L.A. for Betts and David Price: A young major-league-level outfielder with upside (Alex Verdugo) an infield prospect (Jeter Downs) and a catching prospect (Connor Wong).
Boston Red Sox
Verdugo arguably has higher upside than Nimmo or Davis, but Davis hit .307 with 22 home runs and an .895 OPS last season at age 26.
Gimenez and Mauricio both are among MLB.com's Top 100 prospects, although lower on the list than Downs (No. 44): Mauricio is at No. 62 and Gimenez at No. 84.
It's easy to see why talks fell through, though: Boston would have had to absorb the contracts of Cespedes or Lowrie (both former Red Sox), which may have pushed the club over the $208 million luxury tax.
The Red Sox got under that threshold by having the Dodgers pick up part of Price's contract and still got what looks like a better haul from L.A's rich farm system than New York could have offered.