Bellhorn04

Red Sox 2013 payroll numbers per Alex Speier of WEEI (who is one of the very few baseball writers who seems to understand how many people like to know these numbers) These are the luxury tax numbers-the AAV numbers. The luxury tax threshold for 2013 is 178 million. Guaranteed deals John Lackey, $16.5 million David Ortiz, $13 million Mike Napoli, $13 million Shane Victorino, $13 million Clay Buchholz, $7.4 million Dustin Pedroia, $6.80 million Jon Lester, $6 million Jonny Gomes, $5 million David Ross, $3.1 million Jose Iglesias, $2.1 million TOTAL GUARANTEED: APPROX $86 MILLION Arbitration eligible Jacoby Ellsbury Jarrod Saltalamacchia Andrew Bailey Alfredo Aceves Craig Breslow Andrew Miller Daniel Bard Franklin Morales PROJECTED TOTAL: APPROXIMATELY $30 MILLION-$35 MILLION Pre-arbitration eligible Junichi Tazawa Mark Melancon Felix Doubront Ryan Kalish Daniel Nava Will Middlebrooks Clayton Mortensen Pedro Ciriaco PROJECTED TOTAL: APPROXIMATELY $5 MILLION Additional expenses Medical, 40-man roster, etc. APPROXIMATELY $12 MILLION ESTIMATED 2013 TOTAL COMMITMENTS: $138 MILLION So we are about 40 million under the threshold. If they were to sign Dempster for 13 million that would leave about 27 million of room left.

Based on his last 3 seasons Sanchez appears to have the potential to be a solid #2 or #3 for a number of seasons. That's not clogging a spot, it's filling a spot.

That seems beyond absurd to me. I can't see them backing out unless there's a medical issue.

I'm guessing our bargain starters have had a collective ERA over the last 5 years of about, oh, maybe 6.25?

OK, now help me out with this...how have we done with bargain starters in recent years?

But how sure are we that prices are going to go down? The list of who's left is shorter, but aren't there still a lot of teams with money to spend? Haven't seen any bargain signings yet.

The inertia on the pitching front is amazing. It'll be a sad joke if they do no more than make an offer to Ryan Dumpster. If that's the way it ends up, I hope the team wins 68 games and Cherington is fired mid-season.

What position would Swisher be playing?

It's a big year in Bailey's career. I would hope he has been working his butt off and is motivated and a little angry and all that good stuff.

Sanchez isn't a 'retread'. He's only 28 years old and he's only logged 869 major league innings. When we signed Lackey he was a couple years older and had logged 1500 innings.

Another stat showing how strong Sanchez finished last year: Last 11 starts including postseason 74.2 innings 2.05 ERA 62 K 13 BB

I would rather see Marcum than Dempster as well because he's got some AL East credentials. I did see some scary data on his fastball speed from last year though.

It's debatable. Who's going to be available next year? Does anybody even know at this point? If what you're saying is correct, they should have moved on Haren or McCarthy.

The Red Sox have done some encouraging things so far this offseason, but not in the area of starting pitching. The offer they made to Dempster is not a good sign at all. If they don't do something better than that, they're going to end up looking like the same old dumbasses in spite of good moves in other areas.

Sure it's an overpay. But will there be a time in the foreseeable future that there won't be an SP shortage, or that you won't have to overpay to acquire a starter? I have my doubts.

Are the Red Sox considering A. Sanchez at all? If you include his postseason numbers last year, he posted a 3.67 ERA in 216 innings. Even better, if you use only his numbers with Detroit, including postseason, he posted a 3.32 ERA in 95 innings. Sanchez's asking price of 15 million is not unreasonable considering what other FA's are getting. The 6 years is obviously a killer. What about 5/80? Why not? Sanchez probably projects as well or better over the next 5 years as anybody we've got.

Those are some remarkable numbers. Man, what a durable group...Doubront and Lackey each over 200 innings! Bill must have created some new projection models.

I can rationalize with the best of them, but if they don't at least add a starting pitcher it will be a travesty. The 2012 starting rotation had the highest ERA in franchise history and we have plenty of payroll room. There's no defence.

The LT threshold is frozen at 189 million for 2014 through 2016, or until the end of the current CBA.

There was a later rumor that Henry was looking to sell part of his interest to another minority shareholder but would remain principal shareholder. That makes a bit more sense to me and may have been the source of the Fox story. If Henry was actively trying to sell the team the story would have spilled out by now...you can't hide something like that from the Boston media.

The Dodgers are not only paying Greinke 25 million a year, but from the looks of it they'll be paying luxury tax of 40 or 50% most of the 6 years, plus the other new penalty. So in effect Greinke might cost them 35-40 million a year.

Josh Beckett is actually a good example of why the numbering system for starters can get a little silly. He's possibly the most erratic starter I've ever seen. He could be a stud hoss #1 and a back-end bum...all in the same season.

They're only going to add one starter.

There are perfectly good reasons why the Red Sox would be looking for short term deals other than the 'prepping to sell' theory. For one thing they just got burned on a bunch of longer term deals. Second they've got prospects a year or two away. Guys like Wilbur love the conspiracy stuff.

Wilbur knows nothing more about any of this than we do. Guessy guessy. It's clear we'll be hearing speculation about Henry selling the team from now until it actually happens. FWIW there's growing speculation about the Steinbrenner boys wanting to sell too. I'll believe it when I see it.