Relieving Boston of Some Old Sox

Just a year ago, former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt's stubborn refusal to relinquish control of his nearly insolvent baseball team but the image and the future of one of Major League Baseball's most iconic franchises into questionable uncertainty. A year later, the ownership group including Los Angeles sports legend Magic Johnson has the Dodgers in the thick of the playoff race and relieving other trouble franchises of toxic assets with massive contracts.

"We understand that you have to spend money to be good in this league." 

These are the words straight from the lips of Magic Johnson. The Dodgers have acted consistently with that statement. During the second half of the season, the Dodgers had acquired former batting champion Hanley Ramirez (.254, 20 HR, 79 RBI) from the Miami Marlins, and former All-Star and Gold Glove winner Shane Victorino (.260, 10 HR, 47 RBI) from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Those moves, in and of themselves, made a splash in the National League West race. It seemingly forced the hand of the (currently) first place San Francisco Giants to upgrade their anemic batting order via a trade to acquire Hunter Pence (.260, 18 HR, 75 RBI) from the Phillies. Those trades, however, are footnotes in light of the mega deal that went down between the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox last Friday.

A winner who knows how to win.

CHANGE OF SCENERY

The Hat Trick has run multiple articles this year about the dysfunction that is the Boston Red Sox. Going into the 2011 MLB season, many writers, myself included, thought that the season could be skipped and the Red Sox could just be handed the American League pennant. Boston made blockbuster hot stove transactions in the offseason leading into 2011, acquiring All-Stars left fielder Carl Crawford (.282, 3 HR, 19 RBI, 31 GP) and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez (.298, 16 HR, 90 RBI).

The Red Sox's epic collapse at the end of last season and borderline lunacy in their clubhouse this season has resulted in a team with a losing record, a lot of finger pointing, and over a quarter-billion dollars in undesirable contracts. Nowhere did I mention that any of those players tied to the big contracts forgot how to play baseball because I don't think they did. I think they ran their courses in Boston.

Boston isn't always the most wholesome place to be.

GET WINS OR DIE TRYING

The Dodgers are a proud historic franchise. While they are regularly a playoff contender, they were once a fixture in the National League Championship Series and World Series until the late 1980s. The Dodgers have not won the National League since their World Series winning year of 1988, when Kirk Gibson was the Most Valuable Player of the National League and a hobbled hero delivering a pinch hit walk off homerun in Game 1 of the Fall Classic instead of the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. In other words, the Dodgers have not tasted real glory in a very long time.

Last week, the Dodgers acquired Crawford, Gonzalez, and All-Star pitcher and 2007 World Series champion starting pitcher Josh Beckett (5-12, 5.21 ERA) in a trade that sent much lower profile players to the Red Sox, except for struggling first baseman James Loney (.254, 4 HR, 35 RBI). The Dodgers acquired what will either be a lottery of All-Star players or a booby prize of roughly $210 million in dead weight contracts.

Magic Johnson and the Guggenheim Group gambled that the three big names they acquired still know how to  play baseball at the highest level and, more importantly, are hungry to prove their former employer wrong and win a championship. The Dodgers will make a very serious run at the postseason in September while the only post-anything in the Red Sox's immediate future is Post Raisin Bran and sour grapes. Both teams in this trade could be really big winners or really big losers.

Matt Kemp: You wanted help? You got it!

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All images cited in prior editions of The Daily Hat Trick