As first reported by MLB insider Jeff Passan, the Red Sox and Yankees made their seventh trade in the last 50 years on Tuesday evening.

Alex Verdugo will be donning pinstripes and shaving his beard, and the Red Sox will add three right-handed pitchers to an organization that needs as much pitching as it can get.

Verdugo is in his final year of arbitration, and has been the subject of trade rumors for several months. While the Red Sox never engaged with him on extension talks, several clubs were interested in him at the trade deadline. The Yankees made their interest in Verdugo known in early November; they were one of several teams that called the Red Sox about him, Craig Breslow said.

Over four seasons in Boston, Verdugo hit .281 with a .761 OPS, 124 doubles, 43 home runs, 206 RBI, and 280 runs. There were flashes of brilliance, such as his three consecutive games with a leadoff home run in late August, something no Red Sox player had done before, and stretches of clutch hits, like when he became the third Major Leaguer since 1920 to collect three walk-off hits in a team’s first 30 games of the season. He was one of the best defensive outfielders in the American League this year, and named Boston’s lone Gold Glove finalist.

Unfortunately, he never seemed to live up to his potential. At least, not consistently.

Verdugo will be remembered as a lightning rod in a tumultuous era of the franchise. At first, through no fault of his own; he didn’t ask to be the centerpiece of the biggest Red Sox trade since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919.

But over the last four seasons, Verdugo often courted controversy, and that, more than anything, suggested that he wouldn’t wear a Red Sox uniform again. On the final day of the ’22 season, Alex Cora was quick to call him out as the player who most needed to take a step forward the following year. Last February, the outfielder approached a group of top Red Sox personnel – including principal owner John Henry – at spring training and declared that he was ready to prove he deserved a long-term extension. Instead, as had been the case the season before, Cora ended up benching him for lack of hustle.

There was also the day in early August when Verdugo was abruptly scratched from the lineup with no explanation. It turned out he’d shown up to Fenway Park several hours late. Even hours later, his manager was visibly furious. “This is probably one of my worst days here in this organization,” Cora said.

In the clubhouse, Verdugo looked confused when asked if he took accountability,. “Do I take accountability for what?” He asked. “I mean, yeah, I guess.”

But asked if he’d been on time, he said yes.

In exchange for their longest-tenured outfielder, Boston receives three right-handers: Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice.

Judice is the youngest of the three. The Yankees selected him in the eighth round of this summer’s draft out of Louisiana Monroe. He’s been assigned to the Red Sox rookie-level Florida Complex League.

Fitts, 23, was New York’s sixth-round pick in the 2021 draft. He spent the entire ’23 MiLB season in the Double-A Somerset rotation, where he posted a 3.48 ERA across 27 starts (152 2/3 innings). Double-A managers voted him “Best Control” of any pitcher in the Eastern League this season. He’s been assigned to Double-A Portland.

Of the trio, Weissert is the only one who’s debuted; he made 29 relief appearances in pinstripes between 2022-23, and posted a 4.60 ERA across 31 1/3 innings.