It’s time.

Since Friday afternoon, the Red Sox have appeared to be on the verge of sending Mookie Betts to California. Though nothing is certain, there’s a sense among those in the industry that the former American League MVP will be in a Dodgers uniform on Opening Day.

The Dodgers have a deep pool of prospects to replenish a Sox’s farm system that was pillaged by Dave Dombrowski, they have payroll flexibility to bail the Sox out of a bad contract (David Price, again via Dombrowski) and they have the motivation to acquire an elite player.

Will the trade be a good one for the Red Sox? We’ll find out.

For now, let’s talk about a subject that many in New England hate to confront: Is Mookie Betts overrated?

The term “overrated” is used too loosely when talking about athletes. First we need to establish a baseline of what his rating is. And we usually do that with dollar signs.

At $27 million this year, Betts is far from overrated. He’s actually quite underrated given the low risk involved in a one-year contract. If any team had the chance to sign Betts on a one-year deal in an auction with 29 other clubs, chances are he’d be making upward of $40 million.

So in that sense, no, he’s not overrated.

But there will be discrepancy about just how much money Betts is worth next offseason. He’s always said he wants to maximize his value and feels it’s in the best interest of the players that come behind him to set a new bar in free agency.

If it happens, and if Betts is paid more or equal to Mike Trout, then you bet he’s overrated.

Betts has benefited greatly from playing his home games at Fenway Park, where doubles and triples tend to skyrocket (based on ESPN’s park factors over the last six years), and that’s why using OPS-plus, a number adjusted for league and ballpark, is the easiest way to compare Betts to his peers.

In five of his six seasons, Betts has posted an OPS-plus between 108 and 135. The outlier was while playing for the 2018 Red Sox, a team currently under investigation for using their replay video room to steal signs, when Betts posted an OPS-plus of 186.

It was a remarkable year, the sixth-best by OPS-plus since steroid testing got serious in 2005. Betts went bonkers, hitting .346 with 47 doubles, 32 homers and 30 stolen bases while winning a Gold Glove in right field.

A player who does that every year is worth $40 million a year or more.

In his other five seasons he’s averaged .293 with 36 doubles and 21 homers.

Even with the electric defense and baserunning ability, that’s closer to a $25-million player.

Trout has had an OPS-plus between 168 and 198 every single season in the big leagues. He signed a 10-year, $360-million extension last year.

Too often Betts and Trout are compared, and it doesn’t seem fair.

Betts isn’t Trout and he isn’t close. Nobody is. Trout is a generational player. It doesn’t mean Betts isn’t a great player – he obviously is. But in reality he falls closer to being ranked in the teens among the game’s best players, not at No. 1 or No. 2.

Here’s where Betts ranks in the past five years: 23rd in homers (134), first in doubles (217), 10th in average (.302), 16th in OPS (.898) and 16th in OPS-plus (134).

Players who have had a higher OPS-plus than him and signed contracts in the last five years include Trout (10 years, $360 million), J.D. Martinez (five years, $110 million), Nelson Cruz (two years, $26 million), Bryce Harper (13 years, $330 million), Josh Donaldson (four years, $92 million) and Paul Goldscmhidt (five years, $130 million), among others.

Look at the past three seasons comparing Betts to slick-fielding third baseman Anthony Rendon, who just signed a seven-year, $245-million contract with the Angels.

Betts: .299, 85 homers, .924 OPS and 141 OPS-plus.

Rendon: .310, 83 homers, .953 OPS and 143 OPS-plus.

The players aren’t far away in offensive value. Rendon didn’t even eclipse $250 million in free agency this winter.

It remains staggering to think 10 years and $300 million wouldn’t be enough to keep Betts in Boston.

Perhaps as an industry we’ve become too obsessed with WAR charts.

The WAR charts, for example, will tell you that Betts was worth 6.8 WAR in 2019 and shortstop Xander Bogaerts was worth just 5.2 WAR. But most of us who followed the games closely all year long would tell you Bogaerts was a more valuable player from March through September.

The Red Sox will miss Betts when he’s gone, there’s no doubt.

But cool the jets on the Trout comparisons. Betts is likely to get paid more than he’ll be worth next winter. And if the Sox can get good value for him now, the organization will be better off saying goodbye one year early.