Yankees’ trade for Alex Verdugo already looks like a Brian Cashman win

BOSTON — Here’s some blunt, unsolicited advice for the Red Sox: Stop trading with the Yankees, fellas. When you begin your transaction history by sending Babe Ruth to The Bronx for 100 grand and thus hand your hated rival an all-time dynasty for relative pennies, you’ll never even the ledger, anyway. So why even try?

The latest significant move (but not quite that significant!) between history’s greatest sporting foes looks very much today like yet another unqualified winner for New York. Alex Verdugo, who’s matched the hope and exceeded the hype in pinstripes, made his old team pay in a big way in his first game back in Fenway Park.

Verdugo hit the very first pitch he saw here as a Yankee into the center-field bleachers, and later doubled home a run off the Green Monster in left and singled in yet another run. His three-hit, four-RBI performance made for a homecoming from heaven and spurred the Yankees to their baseball-leading 50th victory while dropping the Red Sox back to .500.

The young man with the flashy, diamond chains and original quotes always did have a flair for the dramatic, even if he didn’t turn out to be nearly worth homegrown superstar Mookie Betts the Red Sox foolishly sent to Los Angeles to get him (and a few others).

The swap of Verdugo to the Yankees will never be the worst trade the Red Sox made involving him, as that first one was an all-time doozy — not close to forgivable for this sports-crazed city. It also isn’t the best deal the Yankees made at the Winter Meetings, as they landed his superstar outfield mate Juan Soto at the same event in Nashville in December.

Though Verdugo was seen as mostly a solid left-handed bat and fine glove to fill the Yankees’ long-term left-field hole for a year, he’s turned out to be almost All-Star worthy. He’s unlikely to receive an invite to Arlington, Texas, as he’s sharing an outfield with the two leading MVP candidates — Aaron Judge and Soto — but after a promotion he often hits cleanup in the league’s best lineup.