It feels as if the Sox are pushing their chairs back from high-roller table

The Red Sox let the Astros reportedly hire Dusty Baker, the best and most expensive manager on the market, without showing any interest in him. And now they are entertaining trade proposals for right fielder extraordinaire Mookie Betts.

Sadly, it feels as if the Red Sox are pushing their chairs back from the high-roller table.

Betts brings all the qualities an organization would want in a superstar, and the fact that Xander Bogaerts does as well is all the more reason to keep Mookie. A lineup that features Betts, Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers means pitching is the only area in need of serious fortification.

To deal Mookie now in order to make the luxury-tax outlook better and the team worse would feel like such a surrender from an organization that has found a way to marry its television property and ballclub to become a high-speed printing press of dead presidents.

Why even contemplate such a move? For fear they'll lose him to free agency? That's not how whales operate. They're not driven by fear. They believe in their ability to play hands just right, and they know how to close. This is no time to fold.

Do the Red Sox not believe they have a skilled negotiator, or worse, do they handcuff their best deal-maker by absurdly insisting that Betts take a "hometown" discount?

Trading Betts would be a defensive move, not an aggressive one.

The Sox are paying the price for the inflated contracts of oft-injured Nathan Eovaldi and aging elite starting pitchers Chris Sale and David Price, so the answer is to unload a superstar in his prime, a year before he enters free agency?

By dealing Betts, the owners would punish themselves too severely for past mistakes. They deserve better, and so do Red Sox fans. Better for ownership to penalize itself by paying outrageous taxes than by unloading a great and beloved player.

Have the Red Sox thought this one all the way through?