Mookie Betts deal on hold due to medicals for Brusdar Graterol

Whether you liked the Mookie Betts trade or not for the Red Sox, I think one thing we all agreed on was that it was nice to just rip the band aid off and be able to move on. It was somewhat torturous to be constantly checking our phones looking to see if the deal finally happened. Now that it’s over, it’s a freeing feeling. Well, at least it was. Now, it appears the deal is being put on hold. Before we get into it, the most important part here is that everyone is indicating a deal is still likely to get done, it just might be tweaked.

Ken Rosenthal is on it with the reporting, releasing an article last night detailing exactly what the issue is. It revolves around Brusdar Graterol, who didn’t exactly fail his physical from my understanding of the report but rather... didn’t pass with flying colors? The exact wording from Rosenthal is”

“The Red Sox, after viewing the medical records of Twins right-hander Brusdar Graterol, projected him more as a reliever than as a starter.”

That is bizarre! Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything close to the that terminology around a medical report. It’s especially weird because for a while now many people around the Twins and national prospect evaluators had Graterol pegged as a reliever. This was due to both the fact that he only had two pitches as well as his injury history. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to the Red Sox.

All of that is not to say this is the Red Sox being dumb or playing some sort of nefarious game here, to be clear. I don’t think the Red Sox, for all of the issues I have here, are dumb. This being a response to the backlash they’ve gotten for this deal, which is a theory I’ve seen thrown around, they wouldn’t be trusted to do a deal with anyone again. That’s not how Chaim Bloom would be looking to start off his tenure here. There has to be something medical here, but it’s just phrased in a strange way.

As I said above, Rosenthal and others have said that those involved still believe a deal is going to get done. It would be totally bizarre if this deal got this far and this strange medical thing, whatever it may be, reversed everything. It seems like the Red Sox may get another piece, but it’s unclear how significant it would be. Presumably it would come from the Twins, but I’m not even sure about that. This whole thing is so weird. Truly the trade from hell.